THE SOMETIMES PREACHER

The Prince of Motown

2012-01-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

I've been super busy this week and haven't been able to blog at all, but that doesn't mean that the world has stopped. If you read this blog regularly, or know me at all, you know that I'm a huge fan of the Detroit Tigers. I love the sport of baseball, and have been a Tigers' fan since I was 5 years old.

Last year, the Tigers dominated the American League Central Division, beat the hated Yankees in the first round of the playoffs, and then lost to the Texas Rangers in the AL Championship Series. They showed a lot of heart that year, and Justin Verlander dominated the league by winning both the Cy Young and MVP awards.

A huge part of the Tigers' success was the addition of Designated Hitter and Catcher Victor Martinez. He hit really well, especially with runners on base, and provided outstanding leadership in the clubhouse. But something terrible happened to him last week. In a freak exercising accident, Martinez tore the ACL in one of his knees--an injury that will keep him out of baseball for the entire 2012 season.

Martinez's absence leaves a gaping hold in the Tigers' lineup, one that no Tigers' fan thought could be filled by one person. There was one free agent left on the market, Prince Fielder, who could meet or exceed Martinez's statistical contribution, but Fielder is a first basemen, and Miguel Cabrera was already holding that job down just fine. (Cabrera is arguably the game's best hitter.) Nobody thought the Tigers were in on Fielder, until they announced that they had signed him to a 9 year, $214 million contract!

I was floored. Then I was excited. Then I thought, "Where's he going to play? What about Cabrera? What will happen next year when Martinez comes back? What's he going to be like at the end of that contract? Will he be worth it?"

Miguel Cabrera will be switching to third base, which is actually his natural position. He's a really big guy, and will need to shed a few pounds, but Jim Leyland, the Tigers manager, seems confident he can play there. So I'm not going to worry about the defense. This wasn't a defensive move. This was a move that Mike Ilitch, the Tigers' owner, wanted to make to win a World Series before he dies. (He's 85 years old.) And if everybody stays healthy, this move certainly puts the Tigers into that upper echelon of teams in the game. The Tigers have the games best pitcher in Justin Verlander, one of (if not the) the best hitters in Miguel Cabrera, and now a serious power threat to complement him in Prince Fielder. Besides those high-level, possibly Hall of Fame caliber players, the Tigers have an excellent supporting cast in Jhonny Peralta, Brennan Boesch, Alex Avila, Doug Fister, Jose Valverde, and many others. This is, easily, the most talented Tigers team since they won the World Series in 1984.

Last year, Prince hit .299 with 38 home runs, 120 RBIs, and an OPS of .981. For reference, the man he is replacing in the lineup, Victor Martinez, hit .330 with 12 home runs, 103 RBIs, and an OPS of .850. Martinez is an excellent player, but at 33 years old, he is on the down side of his prime. Fielder is just 27 and still entering his prime. I expect similar numbers to these for at least the first 5 years of the contract.

As a fan, I'm excited about the offensive potential of the Tigers' lineup. Coupled with our excellent starting rotation and shut down bullpen, this team has a great shot to win the World Series. If there were still a move to make, I would really love them to pick up a speedy, defensive wiz at second base. But no team is perfect, and in my opinion, the Tigers are the best team in baseball. Here's to hoping we get Mr. Ilitch, and the city of Detroit, that World Series trophy in 2012.

Ember Monday

2012-01-23T13:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday we pressed deeper into the identity of Jesus during our series on the Gospel of Mark. The sermon was called The Question, and the text was Mark 6:1-16. In this text we find Jesus coming back to his hometown of Nazareth, where the people who watched him grow up can't accept who he has become since his baptism. They sneer, cynically, "Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son?" The people who knew him best doubted him the most, so that he was hardly able to do any miracles in Nazareth.

The lesson we learn from the unbelief of the people of Nazareth, especially when contrasted with the faith of the twelve disciples, is that Jesus can only truly be himself in you when you trust him. Your lack of supernatural faith neutralizes his abundance of supernatural power. But the converse is also true. When you respond to Jesus in faith he will unleash his supernatural power in your life. You can listen to the sermon in the audio player on this blog, or you can download it from our podcast: http://sermon.net/EmberChurch/rss/ (I've submitted our podcast feed to iTunes several times now, but still can't manage to get us in the podcast directory!)

The music last night was excellent, as always. I especially love the services when Garth shows up with his upright bass. We were especially blessed to have Rocky on the drums--we don't get a full drum kit very often, so we're always excited when we do.

The last song we sang was that old hymn What a Friend, which encourages us to take our burdens to God in prayer. Of all the things that God is teaching me right now, taking my burdens to him in prayer is at the top of the list. And the message of the song is that we can take our burdens to Jesus in prayer because he is our friend! So true.

Ember Church meets every Sunday night at 5pm at 401 E. Schrock Rd. in Westerville. All are welcome.

Anselm's Rational Argument for the Existence of God

2012-01-20T13:03:00.000-05:00

I'm reading a book called Belief, which is an anthology of arguments for the reasonableness of faith. It was compiled by Francis Collins, who wrote The Language of God. While I'm not a huge apologetics guy, I do enjoy reading this type of stuff from time to time. Some of it is very mentally stretching for me, making me wish I had taken a philosophy course in college.

I had this moment yesterday when reading a short entry from Anselm of Canterbury. I don't recall reading anything from Anselm before, and while this was just a couple pages long, I could tell I would have an extremely difficult time keeping up with him over the course of an entire book. Do you enjoy apologetics? Do you like to read the classics? What's it like for you to read a book that was written in a time very different from our own?

I'd like to lay out, as best I can, Anselm's rational argument for the existence of God.

"God is something than which nothing greater can be thought." In other words, whatever the greatest thing we can think and imagine in our minds, that is God.

The Bible says, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" But when this person hears the description, "something than which nothing greater can be thought", he gets a picture of that something in his mind, even though he believes that that something does not exist.

However, "something than which nothing greater can be thought" cannot merely exist in the mind, because then everything that does exist would be greater than it. If "something than which nothing greater can be thought" exists solely in the mind, then it is "something than which many greater things can be thought", which is, of course, absurd.

Therefore, it is definite that "something than which nothing greater can be thought" must exist both in the mind and in reality.

As I understand him, Anselm is basically saying that the greatest thing you can think of must exist both in your mind and in reality, because anything that exists in reality is greater than anything that exists only in the mind. So if God is the greatest thing we can think of, he must exist in reality, otherwise he would not be the greatest thing we can think of.

Anselm wrote this about 900 years ago. What do you think? Is it a convincing argument? Does it have a fatal flaw?

Pastors and Money, Jesus and Paul

2012-01-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

This post is a response to a comment from a friend, who was responding to Tuesday's post, Tithing.

For the issue of giving to the local church, we have to look to Paul because, as you say, Jesus was dealing with a pre-local church context. In fact, he was dealing with a Jewish context where tithing was a part of Torah, and he encouraged the people to tithe. "You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former." (Mt. 23:23)

So then, to Paul. This is from 1 Corinthians 9.

1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? 2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

3 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4 Don’t we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?

7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? 8 Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

13 Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? 14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

15 But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me, for I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast. 16 For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

Verse 14 is crucial because Paul declares a command directly from Jesus, that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. Paul, however, lets the Corinthians off the hook in this regard, not because he's being magnanimous, but because of their stubborn and judgmental hearts (v. 3).

The problem is not that Paul shouldn't be asking for money and is, it's that the congregation is judgmental toward and offended by him when he does. The root of this problem, as I stated in the previous post, is that money is an idol for all of us.

Let me go one step further. Almost every pastor I know would do the ministry for free if it were possible. I can't think of a single person in the ministry, that I know personally, who is doing this because it seemed like a wise career choice. They are all doing it because they believe God has called them to the task, and they are so passionate about the proclamation of the Gospel that they would forsake lucrative careers in other fields to give their whole lives to the mission of Jesus. (In case you were wondering, a Master of Divinity is the only Master degree where the typical holder earns less than those with just a Bachelor degree.)

Nobody goes into ministry for the money. I, myself, ministered for free for 2 years. I'm trying very hard to minister for free right now, and am extremely grateful for the generosity of Ember Church in the meantime. Paul ministered for free because the people in Corinth were hard-hearted and judgmental. (In fact, it's more likely that he had to rely on the support of other, more generous and kingdom-minded churches to supplement what he lacked from his tent-making work.) But that is not God's plan for those who preach the gospel. Again, verse 14, "The Lord [Jesus] has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel."

We could even drop down another level and talk about what Jesus commanded his disciples when he sent them out in, say, Mark 6. (Which is the passage I'm preaching from this week at Ember.) Verse 8, "Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts." What is he saying? He's saying, "Trust my Father to provide for your needs through the generosity of those to whom you preach." So even as far back as the first commissioning of the disciples we see that Jesus' intention is for them to "receive their living from the Gospel."

Someone might say, "Well that's convenient for you to say, guilting people into giving so that you can earn a salary." But that cynicism doesn't negate the explicit command of Jesus. While we pastors, Paul included, might walk on eggshells and put up with a lot because of this cynicism and judgmentalism, it is not what Jesus intends for his church. And the cynicism is wrong. It is, biblically, wrong. But we pastors, like Paul, put up with it for the sake of the gospel. We hem and we haw over money, and we pussyfoot around because we think that, because we earn our living by preaching, we don't have the moral authority to preach on money. That's simply bogus. If money is a near-universal idol, and the Gospel has something to say about all of our idols, and we're called to preach the Gospel, then we've got a moral obligation and a command from Jesus himself to preach on money. If you (and this is a general you) as a Christian are offended by biblical teaching on money, then your idol is showing, and you should expect God to do something to your idol along the lines of what he did to Shiloh, and then to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Tithing

2012-01-17T13:56:00.000-05:00

Warning: This post is about money.

Further warning: Money is probably the most powerful idol in your heart.

I've written this post because money is an important topic for Christians to talk about, but many of us pastors are afraid to talk about it because of the sins of those who have gone before us. We are afraid. But, alas, some things must be said, even at the risk of being lumped in with the Jimmy Swaggarts of the world.

In the interest of full disclosure, part of my motivation to write this post is the financial state of Ember Church. However, I have no intention of trying to motivate people in my own congregation to give so that the church can be rescued. If you were at church last week when we publicly discussed our financial circumstances you know this. (If you attend Ember and missed this information, but would like to know more, please let me know.) What Ember needs is for me to find a full-time job somewhere else in the city, something I am trying to do in earnest. However, what I've written below still needs to be said. As usual, I've tried to state things as clearly and frankly as possible.

I'm convinced that the reason we don't like to talk about or hear about money at church is because we love money, put our faith in it, and wrap our identities around it. Let me be plain. Money is an idol. The more viscerally you respond to a sermon on money, the more likely it is that you are harboring money as a powerful idol on the throne of your heart. I know those are strong words, but I believe them, and I believe they need to be said. God hates all of our idols because they steal his rightful place in our lives, and they ultimately make us less than human.

Last week at Ember I mentioned, while talking about the church's finances, that part of why we tithe--give to the local church--is to wage war against the idol of money that captivates our hearts. If greed is the idolatry of money, then generosity to God's work is the antidote to our greed.

What does the New Testament say about tithing?

Oddly enough, the NT does not mention tithing, though for the earliest Jewish Christians it seems likely that they would have continued to tithe to the Temple, and then given an additional amount for the work of the Church. The Gentile Christians did not have to pay a tithe (which was really closer to a national tax for Israel) for the upkeep and operation of the Temple. So what drove them? Here is a sampling of some Scripture from the NT. (Thanks to a commenter at the Jesus Creed named Amos Paul for compiling these.)

1 Corinthians 16:1-2 • Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

Romans 15:27 • They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.

1 Corinthians 9:11 • If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?

1 Corinthians 9:14 • In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

2 Corinthians 8:12 • For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.

2 Corinthians 9:7 • Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Notice that there is no set sum, like a tithe (10%), for the NT churches. Rather, giving is governed by the principles of grace, willingness, and generosity. C.S. Lewis noticed this absence of specific direction, and concluded thusly:

“I do not believe that one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid that the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”

In other words, give until it hurts. Make sacrifices for the work of God, and especially for the local family of God to which you belong. The church's responsibility is not to make its pastors rich, but to make their work possible, and a joy. God takes very seriously the work to which he has called ministers, and his will is for them to "receive their living from the gospel."

Should I tithe when I am in debt?

I hear this question from time to time. "Isn't it God's will for me to be out of debt? Shouldn't I put that ahead of giving to the church?" In fact, it is God's will for you to be out of debt. However, if you're not going to give to the church because of your debt, then neither should you buy any new clothes, eat out, go to the movies, buy Christmas or birthday presents, or do anything else than the absolute, bare minimum required to survive until you have successfully paid off your debt. If you're so concerned over your debt (and you should be concerned over it) that you would withhold from the work of God in your midst, then you should also withhold from yourself every blessing of life in modern America. No cable. No Netflix. No internet. No cell phone. And you should probably sell as much as you possibly can in order to speed up the repayment of your debt.

Have I overstated things? Maybe I have. But is it right to withhold from God's work and indulge yourself? A cell phone might not feel like an indulgence, but when you're giving $100 to Verizon every month and $0 to your local church, and you claim that you're too in debt to tithe, perhaps something has gone awry in your heart. Perhaps there is an idol on the throne of your heart, the throne that rightfully belongs to Jesus.

My family is in debt. We have a mortgage. We have a car payment. We bought a new HVAC system in 2010 that we're paying off. We had our basement waterproofed. We have a significant chunk of debt to pay off. But, despite our debt, and even though I'm the pastor of the church to which we tithe (Yes, pastors tithe too!), we give sacrificially to Ember Church. We do it because we love the local church, and believe in the power of the community of Jesus and the necessity to fund it. (Incidentally, our giving has not increased since planting Ember. We give the same percentage to Ember that we gave to Heritage.)

To answer the question, Yes, you should tithe even when you are in debt. For many of us, we are in debt because money has been an idol. Paying off your debt will not solve the idolatry problem. But I believe that generosity will.

How much should I give to the local church to which I belong?

There is no definitive number for this. Let the principles of grace, willingness, and generosity guide you. You need to work out with God just how much to give. But don't ask, "How much can I afford?"; ask, "How much, God? How much must I give to kill the idol of money in my heart? How much will it take to starve the beast within me?" I know a family that gives 10% of their pretax income to the local church. They do pretax income because they want to make sure that God and the Church gets financial resources before the Government.

Here are some more tithing tips:

Don't chop up your giving. If you've decided on a certain amount to give to the local church, don't reduce that amount to support missionaries or do other charitable giving. Let the local church be your first commitment, then support missionaries from your abundance, if you are able. Also, trust the church to be able to responsibly direct the funds.
Never tell your pastor, "My tithe pays your salary." If you still consider it "your tithe", then you haven't been gracious, willing, or generous. When you put it in the basket, it doesn't belong to you anymore. Just as "your taxes" don't pay for every single thing the government does, so "your tithe" doesn't pay for everything the church does.
Don't withhold tithe to make a political point or express your dissatisfaction with the pastor. This is childish. Don't let your money do the talking when you're perfectly capable of doing the talking yourself.
Trust that God will provide. My family has consistently given more than we can afford, and we have consistently seen God come through for us. Because of God's faithfulness in the past, we have faith for his continued provision in the future.

Tithing is, in the end, a discipleship issue. Tithing calls us to fully root ourselves in a particular faith community, and to follow Jesus in the most sensitive of areas--our bottom lines. It is an act of war with the idol of money. It is an exercise in faith, and God will prove himself faithful.

Ember Monday

2012-01-16T09:48:00.002-05:00

Last night was the third week in our series The Gospel (According to Mark). We covered Mark 3:7-35 in a sermon called The Family. It was a different kind of preaching experience for me because, rather than taking one central idea and working it out for a half hour, I went through the text section by section, treating each one independently. Normally, I don't like to preach that way, but the passage I chose was so long, and so full, that I didn't know how else to attack it.

Something huge that came out of the text, for me, was what Jesus was doing when he appointed his disciples. He chose 12 men, which is, for Israel, a tremendously significant number. There were 12 tribes of Israel--12 sons of Jacob--that formed the original nation. Jesus, by choosing 12 men to be his inner circle, was symbolically reestablishing Israel, recreating the nation of God's people. And here's the kicker: He put himself at the center.

What's so significant about that? Well, consider who was previously at the center of Israel. Who was the first one to establish Israel? Who was in the center of the camp as the 12 tribes moved through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land? It was YHWH. Does that mean that Jesus is replacing YHWH? No, it means that Jesus is YHWH, and that he is replacing the YHWH the people thought they knew. Jesus replaces the God you thought you knew. Everything you thought you knew about God is refined and corrected in Jesus.

Giving communion to one another at Ember.

At the end of the sermon we took communion. We did it in a way that was outside of typical. Normally, communion will be passed down the aisles or administered at the front of the church by the priest or pastor. In order to demonstrate that we are a family in Jesus, I had us administer communion to one another. We formed a line (that's what's happening in the picture), and each person administered the elements to the person behind them in line, saying, "The body of Christ, broken for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you." For me, it was a profound picture of the church in action, giving one another the sacred body and blood of Christ, providing the spiritual sustenance to each other we all so desperately need.

Ember Church meets every Sunday evening at 5:00. We rent a beautiful church called The American Baptist of Westerville, which is at 401 E. Schrock Rd. in Westerville, Ohio. Please feel free to come be a part of our community.

Book Review: I Am a Follower

2012-01-13T09:51:00.001-05:00

The Church has a leadership problem. So argues Leonard Sweetin his new book, I Am a Follower. The problem, however, is not that we don’thave enough leaders, or that our leaders have lost their way. The problem isthat we have become enamored with leadership culture, obsessed with leading,and supremely focused on raising up the next generation of leaders. The troubleis, Jesus never told us to lead. He told us to follow.

The evangelical church has bought into a brand of leadershipthat, since the economic crisis of 2008, has gone bankrupt. But the lonely,trailblazing, genius-coming-down-from-the-mountain model of leadership is notwhat Jesus had in mind for his bride. The picture of leadership in Jesus’ mindwas himself, and the rest of us are called to follow him. “What the worlddefines as leadership is not the wayGod works through his people in the world. …Christians are called to live byfaith in a world that lives by fame.” (28-9)

Christians are not to be leaders, Sweet argues. They are tobe followers. First followers. In other words, Christians should find whereJesus is going, discover where he is at work, and then take up their crossesand follow him there. “In posing the paradox of the ox with an easy yoke and alight burden, Jesus is inviting followers to ‘walk alongside me. Just be withme, and the doing will come naturally.’ …Leadership is a functional position ofpower and authority. Followership is a relational posture of love and trust.”(39-40)

I Am a Follower is a prophetic call to abandon the cultureof leadership, with it’s cultic practices of celebrity-worship and thefruitless pursuit of power and fame. Instead, we must take up the position of asheep, humbling ourselves, and permitting Jesus to be the Good Shepherd ofus—yes, even us church “leaders”! Sweet’s call is one to return to a positionof relationship to God in Jesus Christ, and to forsake our position of functionwithin the institution of Church. “All too often these days, the church’sstories are about success, leadership, justice, happiness. When ministersbecome social workers, preachers become motivational speakers, and evangelismbecomes marketing, the result is a gimcrack gospel that is tawdry, tacky, andcheap. Asked, ‘What story do you love to tell?’ a first follower’s first answeris, ‘I love to tell the story of…Jesus and his love.’” (144)

I Am a Follower is a necessary, if imperfect, book for ourtimes. Evangelicalism is swimming deeper and deeper into the ocean of celebrityand leadership. But there are sharks here, and there is blood in the water! Ifour primary aim is to focus on leaders, then who will care for the flock? Ifthe image of the ideal Christian is a leader, then what hope is there forfollowers? The truth is, we are all followers, and Christ will be moreglorified when we learn to accept that reality and let him lead.

God's Sovereignty

2012-01-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

N.T. Wright stated something in his book Simply Jesus that I thought was quite profound. Christians talk about how Jesus is Lord, how God is in control and sovereign, but there is plenty of evidence in the world that seems to point to the contrary. "If Jesus is Lord and God is control," the skeptic might ask, "then why Katrina? Why AIDS? Why genocide? The world sure doesn't look like a place where God is King."

The story of Jesus's resurrection and his going into "heaven" are only the beginning of something new, something that will be completed one day, but that none of the early Christians supposed had been fully accomplished yet.

The early Christians were, after all, a small minority, staking their daring and apparently crazy claim about Jesus from a position of great weakness and vulnerability. They were perceived...as a threat to the established order.... But their threat to the present world was not of the usual kind. They were not ordinary revolutionaries, ready to take up arms to overthrow an existing regime and establish their own instead. Celebrating Jesus as the world's rightful king...was indeed a way of posing a challenge to Caesar and all other earthly "lords." But it was a different sort of challenge. It was not only the announcement of Jesus as the true king, albeit still the king-in-waiting, but the announcement of him as the true sort of king. Addressing the ambitious pair James and John, he put it like this: "Pagan rulers...lord it over their subjects. ...But that's not how it's to be with you" (Matt. 20:25-26). And, as he said to Pilate, the kingdoms that are characteristic of "this world" make their way by violence, but his sort of kingdom doesn't do that (John 18:36). We all know the irony of empires that offer people peace, prosperity, freedom, and justice--and kill tens of thousands of people to make the point. Jesus's kingdom isn't like that. With him, the irony works the other way round. Jesus's death and his followers' suffering are the means by which his peace, freedom, and justice come to birth on earth as in heaven.

Jesus's kingdom must come, then, by the means that correspond to the message. It's no good announcing love and peace if you make angry, violent war to achieve it!

That's a long quote, but he's saying simply this: The cross of Jesus characterizes the rule of Jesus. His rule and reign is spread, not through violence or war, but through proclamation and agape love. In fact, Christianity grows best when it is oppressed and persecuted--in other words, when the powers of the world do to his followers what they did to Jesus.

Now, here's the point I want to make, and this applies to many Christians, particularly to those who are Reformed. The cross of Jesus replaces everything we thought we knew about what it means for God to be "sovereign" and "in control". The iron scepter that Isaiah talked about, the one by which the Messiah would rule, turned out to be the two wooden beams on which the Messiah was crucified. The sovereignty of God is most clearly visible at the cross, where the Son of God was murdered by Roman soldiers under the command of the Roman Governor, Pilate, and at the behest of the Jewish leaders. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, the strength of God looks like weakness to human eyes.

If you don't perceive God's sovereignty through the lens of the cross, then you fail to perceive it at all. God does not rule with an iron fist, like a great army general; he rules like a sacrificial lamb. The rule and reign of Jesus the King is extended, on earth, through the same means by which it was inaugurated--self-giving, life-losing love. That love, the agape love of the cross, is the one force on earth that no king or general or president can ever stamp out!

The Dance - Your Destiny

2012-01-11T16:18:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis writes, “In Christianity God is not a static thing…but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.” If we press out this metaphor of dance a bit further, we can understand Father, Son, and Spirit as each dancing, orbiting, around the others. They each give unconditional, infinite agape love to the others. They each give glory to the others. There is an eternal dance of glorifying love going on within the Trinity.

Tim Keller writes, “Because the Father, Son, and Spirit are giving glorifying love to one another, God is infinitely, profoundly happy. …The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are pouring love and joy and adoration into the other, each one serving the other. They are infinitely seeking one another’s glory, and so God is infinitely happy. And if it’s true that this world has been created by this triune God, then ultimate reality is a dance.”

Ultimate reality is a dance. We are meant to dance and move and orbit around the Trinity, our triune Creator God. We are not meant to be still, meaning we are not meant to be the center of the universe. Hell is stasis. Hell is ordering your life around yourself, and demanding that others, even God, dance around you.

But God himself, within his internal dynamics, does not even do this. God is three-personal, and each person of the Trinity orbits around the others in a dance of glorifying agape love.

Have you ever wondered why God created humans? Was he lonely? No, he wasn’t lonely, because he is three-in-one. He didn’t lack for relationships or love. Did he have needs? Like, was he hungry? No, he had no needs. He wasn’t hungry, and he didn’t need to create humans to bring him food. Some ancient religions taught that. But not ours.

What compelled God to create humanity was desire, his desire to extend the divine dance from 3 to infinity. God's desire was to spread the other-glorifying dance of self-giving love within himself to an infinite number of beings created in his image. As Tim Keller says, “You were made to enter into a divine dance with the Trinity.” This does not mean that you or I will ever become divine. We will not. But we will become the closest thing possible: The Bride of Christ.

There is a wedding at the end of Scripture, the marriage between Christ and the Church. We, the Church, will become Christ’s everlasting companion; and so the dance will grow. We will be invited in. As the prophets so often put it from God’s perspective: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” Your destiny is to join the dance of the Trinity as a full member of the Church, Christ’s Bride.

But this, of course, is not a dance that we must wait for. You are invited to participate now, today. If all of life is a dance, if ultimate reality is a divine dance, then you need, more than anything, to join the dance today. What bride would show up to her wedding not knowing how to dance?

So the onus is on you to learn how to dance. You must learn humility. You must learn agape love. You must commit yourself to seeing the Gospel happen in your heart, in your relationships, and in your community. You must learn to dance with Jesus as a part of a community of faith. You must learn to live within the agape love of the Trinity.

Ember Monday

2012-01-09T11:58:00.001-05:00

I was really flying high after our baptism service last week. Seeing God move in people's hearts to take that huge step of baptism is one of the most emotionally rewarding experiences a pastor can have.

Yesterday's service was also a powerful one for me because I felt a freedom to worship that I hadn't had in a little while. I'm convinced it was because I was emotionally and spiritually prepared for worship on a level that I hadn't been yet since we started Ember. Everybody in the building stopped whatever we were doing at 4:30 and gathered to pray. While we had done this sort of thing before, this time it seemed more intentional. The Spirit really moved us, and his presence carried over from that time right into the service.

The sermon was the second in our series on the Gospel of Mark, and we looked at four passages where Mark is demonstrating the authority and Lordship of Jesus in particular realms. When he drove out a demon, Jesus demonstrated that he is the Lord over spirits, both angels and demons. When he healed the crippled man who was lowered on a mat from the roof, he demonstrated that he is the Lord over the human body and all that ails it. When he calmed the storm on Galilee, he demonstrated that he is the Lord over nature. Finally, when he raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, he demonstrated that he is the Lord over life and death. In fact, what Mark is telling us in these episodes is that Jesus is Lord Over All. There is nothing over which he does not have authority. There is no where which he is not King.

Jesus is Lord!

Reading the Bible in a Year

2012-01-06T08:16:00.000-05:00

Last year, for the first time in my life, I started a Bible reading plan that I actually finished. It was the M'Cheyne reading plan, and it takes you through the Old Testament once, and the New Testament + Psalms twice in a year. I started the plan on January 1 last year, and, by the grace of God, finished it on December 31. I got behind a lot, especially after Bexley was born, so there were many days of no reading and many days of lots of reading. I had to make up over 20 missed days at the end of the year!

Despite my inconsistencies, it was a very rewarding experience. Though it's indiscernable to me, Breena has noticed a difference in my character. She could always tell, with a fair amount of accuracy, the days I had done my reading and the days I hadn't. (Apparently I'm crankier when I don't read the Bible.) But beyond what this discipline has done to my character is what it has done to my mind and my spirit. I sense deep internal change going on. Fewer impure thoughts. Shorter bouts of despair. Greater attention to the things of God. More passion for Jesus. Order where there was chaos. Clarity where there was fog.

There were many times I wanted to quit. I felt it becoming routine. Mundane. Obligatory. But instead of giving it up so that I could be wholly authentic and not hypocritical at all, I pressed through those emotions and came out the other side. And you know what? There really is a far side of mundane and religious obligation. At first I wanted to do it, then I felt like I had to do it. But instead of giving up at that point, I persevered through it and came to a place where I both wanted to do it and knew that I had to do it. And that was okay.

If you've tried to start a Bible reading before and failed, don't give up. I tried many times and failed. I failed many times in 2011. Just don't give up. Get back on track. Use one of the many plans on YouVersion to keep yourself on pace in 2012. They even have plans as short as one week, so that you can ease your way into the discipline of daily Scripture reading. Just 10 minutes a day in the Word really can change your life!

An Open Letter to Coach Urban Meyer

2012-01-04T09:56:00.001-05:00

Dear Coach Meyer,

First of all, I want to tell you how angry I still am about the 2007 National Championship game. It was embarrassing. Humiliating. Your Gators destroyed us; there's simply no getting around that. I thought we had that game in the bag. I thought we would coast to our second National Championship in five years. But you exposed us; and after that game, whether it's fair or not, the narrative became Ohio State versus the SEC. It was a difficult few years. LSU. Texas. (Heartbreak! But we did still beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl, and while it's off the record books, we beat Arkansas in the Sugar.) And then...well, let's not bring up the tattoos. Or last season. It's time to move on. So I want to say this from the bottom of my scarlet and gray heart: I forgive you. You're my coach now. You've come home. Welcome back.

Now, let me make a confession. We made an idol out of Jim Tressel. We dehumanized him by making him superhuman. We set our expectations too high. We demanded his lifeblood, his flesh, his soul. And when he failed us, we turned on him. We sent him away. And I participated in every step of that journey. It wasn't him so much as it was us and our unrealistic expectaions. We, the fans, the alumni, and the boosters were the first ones who sinned. We drove him to it through our dehumanizing idolization. I don't know if we've learned our lesson yet. I hope we have. So please, be careful. We need you to set boundaries with us. If you don't, we'll eat you alive. If you thought things were tough in Florida...well, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Do us a favor. Keep that promise to your daughter. Don't violate that contract. Eat lunch. Exercise. Go to your kids' sporting events. Take your wife out for dinner. Love your family and take care of yourself. Keep us at arm's length. Keep the program in it's proper place. Don't lose yourself in the sea of scarlet and gray. Don't listen to us when we turn on you. (We will.) Don't pay any attention to us when we boo your players. (We will.) Don't let the expectations of boosters determine how you run the program. Just do your job and go home to your family with a clear conscience.

Most importantly, and I don't know where you stand with this, abide closely with Jesus Christ. Find a church. (I know a good one that's small and meets on Sunday nights!) Only by fostering a deep and rich relationship with the true King will you be able to keep yourself from becoming what we will try to make you into--a king and an idol. Enter into a Christian community that will treat you as a man and not as a god. Jesus doesn't care if you beat Michigan or win Big Ten Titles or National Championships. He cares if your heart is fully turned toward himself in humble submission to his rule and reign. And win or lose, Jesus, the eternal King, loves you.

God bless you!

Andy Holt
tOSU, Class of 2001

Mountain Tops

2012-01-03T11:23:00.001-05:00

A lot of folks at Ember are also involved with Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), which just had their annual Christmas Conference in Indianapolis. It was, as usual, awesome. I can't wait to hear about it from more of my friends!

I also attended a lot of conferences and retreats as a college student. These were, what I called, "Mountain Top Experiences". They are spiritual highs. You come away from these events highly-motivated, deeply-passionate, and just overall on fire for God.

Typically, however, the fire would die down and the passion would fade, and I would return to "normal", which basically meant I became a shy, timid, cynical person again. I would berate myself for not being able to sustain the spiritual high I got at the conferences and retreats. I thought this was a mark of my being immature and weak. Fortunately, I've learned a few things about myself and about life with God since then, so I'd like to share a few of the things I've learned here.

First of all, The spiritual high is designed to fade. The mountain top experience is emotionally and spiritually unsustainable. And that's okay. What's most important is not what you do or believe on top of the mountain, but what you do and believe in the valleys. You are far more dangerous to the devil in the valleys, if you persist through them with faith, courage, and obedience, than you are on the mountain tops. Anybody can get excited about God for a weekend, but one of the distinguishing marks of a true disciple is that he or she remains faithful to God within their times of spiritual and emotional discouragement.

Secondly, Follow through on whatever commitment you made. Keeping your promises to God is vital to fostering a good relationship with him. You might have been in the heat of passion and fire for Jesus when you committed to him a year of overseas ministry (or whatever), but you still made the promise. Keep it. The devil will do whatever he can to get you to break your promises to God. Remember that when you start rationalize your way out of keeping your commitments.

Lastly, Focus on keeping your trajectory upward. If you could graph your spiritual life, how excited and passionate you are about Jesus, what it would look like? Yes, you will have peaks and valleys. But is it moving in a general, upward (meaning more encouraged and more passionate) trend? To accomplish this, you're going to have to participate in spiritual disciplines. You have to get the things of God firmly rooted into the soil of your heart. So I say, start a prayer journal. Use youversion.com (or their smart phone app) to start a Bible reading program. Spend 10 minutes today completely disconnected from all media, in total silence. Raise your hands in worship even when you don't necessarily feel like it. Force yourself to engage with God beyond how you're feeling in the particular moment. Push yourself. If you do that, you'll look back on your spiritual high in ten years and think, "Wow. That's my normal, now."

I hope this helps. If you have any other tips, leave them in the comments section.

Ember Monday

2012-01-02T16:54:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was another night of firsts at Ember. Our first service of 2012. The first week in our series on Mark. And, most importantly, our first baptisms! Let me tell you the story.

Travis Somers came to me a couple months ago saying he wanted to get baptized. We talked about it for a bit, then somebody had the great idea to have our first baptism service on New Year's Day. What better way to start out the new year than to be baptized?

For a long time Travis was the only person who was scheduled to be baptized. We announced it at church several times, and I'm sure I mentioned it online on numerous occasions, as well. But nobody bit, so Travis was it.

On Saturday my son and I went to the church to get the baptistery ready. We turned on the hot water heater, swept out the baptistery, and wiped it down really well. (By "we" I mean "I did all that while Cyrus colored in the kitchen"!)

I returned to the church the next morning to fill up the baptistery with the hot water from the giant water heater. What came out, however, was a brown, mucky, horribly-stinky water-type solution that might have been hot, but was certainly unsuitable for baptizing. In fact, the water smelled so bad the odor set off the toxic gas alarm on the other side of the sanctuary!

Pastor Mark (the pastor of American Baptist Church - Westerville, where we rent space) and I had no idea what to do. We decided the best course of action would be to dump out the stinky brown water-like substance and fill the baptistery with clean, but extremely cold, water. And boy was it ever cold!

I tried boiling large pots of water and dumping them into the baptistery, but that wasn't having any effect. Also, the stove is in the basement, down a really long flight of stairs and clear on the other side of the building. No, thanks. After unsuccessfully searching around town for a sumbersible water heater, I decided that we would just have to suck it up and deal with the frigid temperatures.

About that time I got word from a friend that Becca Lowe also wanted to baptized. Awesome! That's 2! I made sure that both Becca and Travis knew to wear warm clothes.

During the service, I made a call for those who have never been baptized to come forward and be baptized tonight. I didn't expect anyone to come forward because I had been making cracks about the water temperature all night. But Cody Parsons responded! That made 3!

Normally, I would invite each person to go into the baptistery separately, where I would stand with them and ask them a series of questions, which basically amounts to a profession of faith in Christ. This time, however, we took care of all that before getting into the water.

After they each confessed full faith in Christ and submission to him as King, I got into the baptistery (So cold!) with Travis. We both about died from shock. We managed to get through it, though, and I said as loud as I could, "Based on your profession of faith, I know baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And under he went! It was exhilarating! After Travis came Becca, and after Becca came Cody. We all came out alive, and we've all got a great story to tell of the first baptisms we ever had at Ember Church!

The Curious Way God Made Ember Church Possible

2011-12-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

This is a story I've been meaning to write for awhile. It's the story of how God used a blog (not mine) to make Ember Church a reality. Enjoy!

One of the best experiences I had while working at Heritage happened the weekend before Lent, 2010. We usually brought in a big-time guest speaker the weekend before Lent, and this year was no different, because we invited Scot McKnight to come speak to us about Mary. The responsibility fell to me to pick Scot and his wife Kris up from the airport, escort them to the hotel, and to and from church for the weekend. They could not have been nicer, more down-to-earth people; and Breena and I got to share lunch and dinner with them! (Thanks, Heritage!)

Scot has a very popular blog called the Jesus Creed, on which he (and others) makes many thought provoking posts every day. There is usually good, civil discussion in the comment threads. I enjoyed taking part in the discussions for the better part of 2010, and Scot was even gracious enough to post several of my book reviews there.

American Baptist Church - Westerville
Mark Farmer, Pastor

When I moved into full time church planting in early 2011, I stopped commenting at the Jesus Creed, but was still an active reader. One day, in the Spring if I remember correctly, Scot posted about a book he recommended to me over dinner, Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh. It is an excellent book and, as an introvert, I resonated with so much of what he wrote. (You can read my review of the book here.) I left a brief comment on Scot's post about the book, saying something to the effect of, "You recommended this book to me when you were in Columbus, and I really enjoyed it!"

Later that day I got a comment on my own blog from someone going by the handle Pastor Mark. My first thought was, "Is Mark Driscoll commenting on my blog? Does he want to fight me?" As it turns out, it was Mark Farmer, a pastor in Columbus and fellow frequenter of the Jesus Creed blog. He contacted me because he had read my mention of Scot's trip to Columbus, and thought it would be great to get together to chat. I happily agreed, thinking this was a great chance to meet another pastor in the area. I am, after all, the world's worst networker, so whenever I get an opportunity to network with other pastors, I jump at it.

This is where things get God-level interesting. Mark and I both live in Westerville. In fact, we live in the same neighborhood. What is more, he pastors the church that is about a 2 minute drive from my house! We met up at Panera and had a wonderful conversation. He was a missionary and church-planter in France for a long time, and I was eager to hear his stories of ministry in what I perceived to be a difficult environment.

Our first Sunday evening at Ember

Meanwhile, Ember was still in the planning stages, but the summer was fast approaching, and that meant the fall, and our launch, was right around the corner. I had been looking into renting the local elementary school for our Sunday morning services, but the cost, along with the cost of storage, audio/visual equipment, and time to set-up and tear-down seemed prohibitive. We had some money, but not enough to get us off the ground in an elementary gymnasium.

So we turned our attention to renting space at a local church. But who would let us rent part of their building to hold a church service while they were having their own church service? It seemed like we would have to look into the possibility of meeting on Sunday nights.

The beautiful stained glass at ABC.

I had been against that from the beginning because I thought people would then perceive us as Junior Church, or Extra Church. In our culture, you go to church on Sunday morning, and everything else is extra credit. Fighting the culture over Jesus would be hard enough; I didn't want to have to fight the culture over what time you go to church, too.

But it didn't seem like we had many options. As we brainstormed the various churches we could contact, Mark popped into my head. I said to the team, "I just met the pastor of a church right down the road. I don't think they have anything in their building on Sunday nights. I'll talk to him." The following Monday I spoke with Mark, and he presented it to his deacons that night, and they approved it! So we drew up a rental agreement, and we found a home! And it's so much better than an elementary school gymnasium. The building is beautiful. We get to store our stuff on site. They even gave me an office! All for much less than it would have cost us to rent a public school facility.

God is full of surprises. You never know how he's going to provide for you, or make his mission possible. For Ember Church, it was a popular author, his blog, and a local pastor with a wide vision of the kingdom of God.

Telling the Truth

2011-12-28T09:48:00.001-05:00

My wife wrote a post on her blog yesterday about a conversation we had with our kids at breakfast. The kids were talking about living to be 100 years old, and Breena told them that she would be dead when they were 100. That kind of freaked them out, so she reassured them that we would all be together in heaven if we love Jesus. Then she turned to me and asked, "Is that right?"

One of the things we value in our family is telling our kids the truth. That's why we don't do Santa Claus in our house at Christmas. Sure, he's a fun story, but he's portrayed as though he's real, and he most certainly overshadows Jesus during the Christmas season. It's not that we're opposed to fiction or fun stories, it's that we're opposed to fiction portrayed as truth to the point that the real truth is suppressed beneath the fiction. So what does that have to do with going to heaven?

I believe that the truth about heaven gets obscured by the fiction. The popular image is that we become angels when we die, playing harps on clouds and looking out for our loved ones who are still alive on the earth. This is not the biblical image.

So when Breena asked me, "Is that right?", I said, "Well, actually Jesus is going to come back here and reign on the earth." Of course, my little ones don't know what the word reign means, so Breena had me explain it.

"That means Jesus is going to come back and be the king over all the earth. And do you know what else, we are all going to be kings and queens with him!"

I have never seen my kids eyes light up so bright in my life. They could not have been more excited about becoming kings and queens with Jesus. This led into a much longer conversation about how we live on earth, but it was that spark in their eyes and voices that hit me with this epiphany: The truth is life-giving. We tell our kids the truth, not simply because it's the right thing to do, but because it breathes life into their souls. The truth is always better than fiction.

Jesus is better than Santa Claus.

Reigning with Jesus is better than the popular, saccharin picture of heaven.

The truth is better than fiction. Trust your kids. Tell them the truth. They can understand more than you probably realize.

New Sermon Series

2011-12-27T10:38:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm really excited about this one! We're starting a new sermon series at Ember this Sunday on the book of Mark. It's called The Gospel (According to Mark). I know, I know. I'm so creative! But seriously, I'm stoked about preaching through Mark.

This series will take us all the way through Easter, which is April 8. I'm expecting God to show up in powerful ways in our community as we explore the Gospel through Mark's eyes. In fact, Mark's Gospel is probably Peter's Gospel. Many scholars believe that Mark wrote down the memoirs of Peter and turned them into the very first Gospel to be published.

We'll also be celebrating the new series, and the New Year, by having baptisms. If you have not yet been baptized, it's an important step to take as you follow Jesus. As we'll see on Sunday night, even Jesus was baptized! We are baptized as an act of obedience and as a public declaration that we belong to Christ. Baptism is the symbol of our identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We would love to baptize you at Ember this weekend. For more information, please send me an email. I'd love to talk with you about baptism!

Secret Blessings

2011-12-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

After dinner last night Breena got a call from a Restricted number. She normally would not pick up the phone, but she did this time, and it was someone wishing her a Merry Christmas! This person also told her that there were some presents for us behind the van in our driveway. What?! So I went outside to take a look and, sure enough, there they were! And not just little bitty, "oh how sweet" presents. These were massive, "holy crap!" presents.

In typical Holt fashion, we opened them immediately. Bexley got diapers--they're her favorite. Zeke got a big Mater toy. Eisley got a Barbie doll. Cyrus got a massive Cars 2 play set. And Mom & Dad got a gift card to one of their favorite restaurants. Check out the video of the aftermath.

To whoever gave us these secret blessings, Thank you so much! Their value to us far exceeds their material worth. That you thought of us and wanted to bless us without recognition speaks volumes to us. You have truly blessed us. Thank you!

God's Life

2011-12-20T10:53:00.001-05:00

What sort of life are you pursuing? A life of pleasure? A life of purpose? A life of significance? A good life? A quiet life? A family life? What sort of life are you pursuing?

Or are you just sitting back and letting life come at you? Are you passively and blindly accepting your every circumstance? Are you just trying to get by? Are you keeping your head down, hoping to stay out of trouble? Are you trying to become invisible?

Those who follow Jesus, those who are his friends here on earth, have received a specific kind of life. God's life. That's right. In Jesus, you have received the life of the one who created life, and created it with no stain of sin or death. Now the question is: How do you live that life?

One of the least read books of the Bible is 2 Peter. Be honest. When was the last time you read 2 Peter? Did you even know there was a 2 Peter? Could you find it in your Bible in less than a minute? It's okay if you can't.

Here's a powerful statement from one of the least read books of the Bible: His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Everything we need. God has given it to us through his divine power.

You already have everything you need to live God's life. You don't need to be more spiritual, you just need to pay more attention to the Spirit that already lives within you. You don't need to be more mature, you just need to apply the wisdom of the Scriptures--which you already have access to--to the trials and failures of your life. You don't need to know more, you just need to press more deeply into the knowledge of God fully revealed through Jesus Christ.

You don't need more hit points. You don't need to level up. You don't need another heart-piece. You already have all you need to live God's life, the godly life in Christ Jesus. You have it through faith in Jesus. You have it because God called you to it, according to his own goodness and glory. You have it because the Holy Spirit lives within you, and he is talking to you all the time. You have it, because as Peter says in the very next verse, God has given you his very great and precious promises. What are those promises? They are Jesus himself!

As if this wasn't enough, Peter goes on: [God] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. You can participate in the divine nature, right now, on earth, in the same clothes you're wearing today. That's the invitation of God through the fulfillment of his promises--to live his life, to escape the corruption of evil desires. And you don't need anything besides what God has already given you. That's the beauty and power of the Gospel. So go out and live God's life today, and live it without fear or insecurity. When you have Jesus, you have everything you need.

Ember Monday

2011-12-19T10:12:00.002-05:00

Last night was our last service of 2011! It was also our shortest service ever. It was a very low-key service, as many of our friends from Otterbein were on Christmas break.

We celebrated the birth of Christ by singing some Christmas carols, and I preached a short sermon from Luke 1 and 2. The message was about God's surprising plan to overcome the powers of sin, evil, and death through a sneak attack, through subversion. He took out the ruler of this world, Satan, from the inside, and he did it through this child that was born to Mary & Joseph in Bethlehem.

God is quite daring, isn't he? He sent his Son to be born as a helpless baby into a culture where the child mortality rate approached 40%. The family into which he was born was not wealthy or powerful. They had no influence. They had no means to raise the child in a special way. What a risk God took in Jesus, and what a reward we all have gained! Merry Christmas!

Book Review: Simply Jesus

2011-12-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

N.T. Wright has written extensively about Jesus already, so why would he need another book? The truth is, Simply Jesus, is the summation of all that Wright has written about Jesus, from The New Testament & The People of God to Jesus and the Victory of God to The Challenge of Jesus, as well as the line of thought he began laying out with Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, and After You Believe. All of that comes together in this eminently readable, concise tour de force called Simply Jesus.

If you're familiar with N.T. Wright, there isn't much that's new in this book. It's value, however, lies in that his whole career of thinking on Jesus comes together in this single volume. What is more, it is far more practical than much of his previous work, drawing especially on what he brilliantly laid out in After You Believe. If you're not familiar with N.T. Wright and his work, this would be an excellent place to start.

The foundation of Wright's work is history, particularly the first-century history of Roman-occupied Israel. "We have to make a real effort to see things from a first-century Jewish point of view, if we are to understand what Jesus was all about." (xii) To miss Jesus in his own context would be to miss him entirely. And so he works quickly through the historical material he painstakingly laid out in his Christian Origins and the Question of God series. From this work he draws the metaphor of the perfect storm--of three storm fronts colliding at one point at the same time. The three storm fronts of Jesus' day were the Roman Empire, the Jewish Hopes of Liberation, and the Work of God in the Person of Jesus. These three forces crashed into one another for the three years between the baptism of Jesus by John and his crucifixion by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish leaders.

These three years of Jesus' ministry were, as Wright puts it often in this book, "what it looks like when Israel's God becomes King on earth as he is in heaven." The sick are healed. The blind are given sight. The lame walk. The dead are raised. The demon-possessed are set free. This is how the world works when it's Creator God is King, and that's exactly what was happening in and through Jesus.

The tyrant that Jesus came to overthrow was not Rome, as everyone in Israel had hoped and expected to one day happen. The tyrant was "the Satan", the Accuser, and his weapons of sin and death.

Jesus came to believe that the only way one could defeat death itself, and thereby launch the new creation for which Israel and the world had longed, was to take on death itself, like David talking on Goliath in mortal combat, trusting that Israel's God, the creator of life itself, would enable victory to be won. And, since dath was seen in the scriptures as the ultimate result of human rebellion against God and the failure to obey him, if death were to be defeated, then idolatry, rebellion, disobedience, and sin would be defeated along with it. Death, like a great ugly giant, would do its worst, and pour out its full weight upon him. And the creator God would overcome it, showing it up as a defeated enemy. (174)

Jesus is now King. And he is enacting his rule and reign through his body, his disciples, on earth as it is in heaven. Our task, then, is to go about proclaiming that he is King, and enacting his kingdom in the same way in which he went about inaugurating it--by laying down his life on the cross, displaying God's agape love for the world.

This is an outstanding book, and I highly recommend it to every believer, and to every nonbeliever who wants to know more about who Jesus was and is.

A Response to a Response

2011-12-14T23:46:00.000-05:00

This post is a response to Jacob's post, which was a response to my post on questions for Calvinists. If you haven't been following the discussion, it all started with this post, in which I criticized something that David Platt said in a sermon about God hating/abhorring sinners. There is a long thread of comments in that post, which then precipitated a follow-up post on biblical hatred, and then a post called How I Read the Bible. Finally, I offered my reasons for criticizing David Platt here. That's a dizzying trail of links, to be sure. But it's been a fun and fruitful discussion. Before you read what I've written here, you should probably have Jacob's post open in another tab, and it might even be beneficial to have my questions post opened in yet another tab. Now to it.

Jacob, thank you for such an insightful and well-written response! I think you've articulated your position expertly.

While I certainly could have characterized Platt's sermon as "pastorally irresponsible", I didn't think that would be sufficient. Moving to the other end of the evangelical spectrum, I spent a great deal of time working through Rob Bell's book Love Wins, which I also thought was pastorally irresponsible, but which deserved a fuller treatment. I felt the same with Platt, since he is so revered by a great number of evangelicals, particularly of the young and conservative persuasion. As I've written elsewhere, I am not in Platt's faith community, but ,because of his celebrity, and through the miracle of modern social media, he is in mine. Obviously, I felt strongly enough about what he said here, combined with the level of his influence within my own congregation, that something more needed to be said.

I addressed this post to Calvinists/Reformed folks because every person who offered a critique/comment/question holds to that framework, insofar as I know. I could only assume that what I wrote rubbed them the wrong way, and that it had something to do with their overarching theological framework. (Or maybe it's just because Calvinists love to argue theology. Admit it. It's true!) My questions arose because two popular Reformed preachers taught that "God hates (abhors) sinners" (David Platt), and "God hates you" (Mark Driscoll). Furthermore, I find that those who hold to a Reformed framework, with the exception of Tim Keller, emphasize God's glory and his holiness, but not his love. Perhaps I haven't read broadly enough. (I'm not saying they don't believe in God's love or talk about it at all; I'm just saying, from an outsider's perspective, it's not something that seems to characterize Calvinist/Reformed teaching.)

Regarding total depravity, perhaps I haven't understood it correctly. Here is my understanding of total depravity: Human beings are utterly and completely sinful from birth, incapable of doing anything good whatsoever, and incapable of choosing to follow God or ever worship him. Perhaps I haven't got that right.

My perspective is that we are originally created in the image of God, that we rebelled and invited sin and death into God's perfect world. Furthermore, the image of God was broken and perverted in us. We are completely incapable of restoring both that image and the relationship we once held with God. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot redeem ourselves. We need God to do that for us.

Maybe I've gotten total depravity wrong, but I know there are some circles that teach that nonChristians are incapable of doing anything good whatsoever. This is clearly false, in my opinion. Now, do those good deeds earn them salvation, or a little bit of God's favor? No. The "good deed" God wants from us is to believe in his Son, and it is only by God's grace, through faith in Jesus, that we are saved. I believe this puts me well into the Reformed camp. Perhaps I have merely rejected a caricature of total depravity, as you say. But the caricature is a reality in many circles.

As for God's hatred and wrath, I have done my best to define the former, at least. I wrote in my post Biblical Hatred, "Hatred is the intense or passionate dislike of someone or something. But the term has deeper connotations in our culture, implying oppression, ridicule, and antagonism." Perhaps I should have also defined wrath, which I take to mean "the eschatological judgment of God unto condemnation." As I understand it, the wrath of God is a picture of the coming judgment of all humanity, and will be poured out upon all who have rejected Jesus. The overwhelming picture from the Scriptures--mostly the prophets and the NT--is that God's wrath is a future event, the only escape from which is to find salvation in Christ himself.

But both Platt & Driscoll used "hate" in the present tense, meaning God hates you (or sinners) right now, in the present. This is not God's coming wrath, as the Prophets and Jesus and the apostles talked about. This is God's present extreme dislike--his open and full antagonism and oppression today. That is what, in the light of the cross and the overwhelming witness of the NT, I simply cannot believe. I believe that God, like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, is actively and fully running toward every lost soul in the world, and he is doing it in the person and work of his Son.

To sum up, God's wrath is the eschatological judgment unto condemnation; God's hatred is the present antagonism and passionate dislike of sinners. I affirm the former, but reject the latter.

The conversation between Simeon & Wesley is very appropriate. Truly, Christ is our only hope. But that does not mean we do not have the responsibility to persevere and obey, by the grace of God and in the power of the Spirit. Surely, at the very least, the book of Hebrews and the seven letters of Revelation affirm this.

Question 1

What role, if any, does the Abrahamic/Davidic covenant play in these expressions in the Psalms. Are the wicked those Israelites who reject YHWH, or would that also include the Gentiles? Are the righteous David and his followers, or is it the covenant people as a whole?

Here, as with Platt, I would argue that you're overlaying a cognitive framework on the Psalms that they were never intended to accomodate. The theology within the Psalms, while true of course, is expressed in extreme terms because the Psalms are written in the language of the heart. To expound them in search of a literal dogma is to miss the point of the Psalms.

For instance, using Platt's exegetical method, I could make the following case, which I believe would be fully "biblical":

Psalm 137:8-9 • Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. If you want to be happy in life, go to Babylon, which is modern day Iraq, and throw some infants off a cliff. Kill as many babies as you can find, and you will be happy--blessed, even. In fact, this verse is proof that God has commanded the United States Army to invade Iraq, and kill as many civilans as possible, especially children. If we want to be happy, we'd better go to war!

Absurd. Offensive. Horrifying. But my method is the same as Platt's. Ahistorical. "Literal". And, quite frankly, ignorant of proper exegetical methods and the differences between varying types of literature found in the Scriptures.

Question 2

I don't think I'm being vague here at all. A sinner is someone who sins. That seems self-evident. But it seems you don't agree with the premise. Fair enough.

I stand by my exegesis of 1 Timothy 1:15. The verb is in the present tense. His past has humbled him in the present. He knows what he's capable of doing and being, and is teaching Timothy to live with that same sense of his own sinfulness in order to remain humble.

Question 3

I would argue that God has not revealed himself analogically, as you say, but directly and personally, in the person of Jesus Christ. We know God, not through a roundabout circuit of analogies, but in the person of the Incarnate Son.

Colossians 1:15 • The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:19-20 • For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
John 14:9 • Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
Hebrews 1:2-3 • In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
John 8:19 • If you knew me, you would know my Father also.
2 Corinthians 4:6 • For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
John 1:18 • No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

This is really the crux of it, for me. We most clearly know God through Jesus. Whatever we thought we knew about God through Israel's history and their Scriptures must now be reinterpreted through Jesus Christ, which, of course, was exactly what Jesus and the apostles were doing.

Question 4

This is not sophistry at all. The verse in Romans 9 has been quoted to me on multiple occasions, but I've yet to hear an adequate explanation. I put the verses together like that because it seemed especially relevant to the discussion.

Question 5

I agree! Perhaps my clarification above regarding the terms "hatred" and "wrath" will shed some light on this issue. God's wrath is coming at the eschaton, and all who do not believe/reject Jesus will be eternally condemned. But, in my opinion, that does not mean that God hates us today.

•••••

I'll conclude by stating my position as clearly as I can.

God loves humanity with agape love, the love that exists within the Godhead, binding him together in perfect unity.
God will judge sinful/rebellious/unbelieving people.
God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to, among other things, spare all humanity from this coming judgment, also known as God's wrath.
God did this because of his great love for humanity, and the cross of Christ is the clearest and most powerful sign of this love.
All who turn to Jesus in faith and repentance will be saved from the coming judgment.
God is actively pursuing all humanity by empowering his people, the Church, with his very Spirit to make disciples of every people group.
Hatred has to do with present opposition and antagonism, not future judgment unto condemnation.
God does not hate any human being.

And there you have it.

Questions for Calvinists

2011-12-13T07:00:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday I posted a critique of David Platt's sermon on why God hates sinners. (Mark Driscoll recently said much the same thing.) I contended that God does not hate sinners, a position I still hold.

This post generated, by far, the most conversation I've ever had on this blog. Many folks with a Calvinist/Reformed/neo-Reformed perspective brought some great questions and challenges to what I wrote in that and the two subsequent posts. I did my best to answer those questions and challenges within the comments, and in the course of the conversation, some questions began to formulate in my mind that I would like to ask of Calvinists. What follows is a series of questions and challenges for any Calvinist/Reformed readers related to the discussion at hand. Please feel free to post your replies in the comments on this post, and please also use the numbering convention I use here so that we can keep track of the discussion.

Question 1

It seemed to me that, in the challenges I received to my post, God's hatred of sinners was equated with his judgment of sinners. Is this true? If so, why must God hate sinners in order to judge them? And I know this sounds sarcastic but it's not meant to be, but do you really believe that God hates people? Do you believe that God is actively, objectively, and fully (with all divine power) antagonistic and oppressive toward those who have not put their faith in Christ?

Question 2

If God hates sinners, as Platt (and Mark Driscoll) argues, does he hate you? 1 John 1:8 says, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." We all have sin, and we are all, therefore, sinners in a very real sense. Does that mean that God hates even those who have put their faith in Christ? Please bear in mind the words of Paul, written at the end of his life, to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:15, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst." (Note the present tense.) Did God hate Paul?

Question 3

It is often said that hate is not the opposite of love. Perhaps it's not, but they are certainly on the same plane--of the same order, or belonging in the same category. Is it possible for God to both love and hate an individual? Can love and hatred exist within God's heart for the same person at the same time? At the risk of leading the witness, it may be helpful to reflect on what Paul writes in Ephesians 3:16-19.

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Question 4

The verse from Romans 9 came up in the discussion: "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated." This is a quote from Malachi 1. I'd like to put a few of the relevant verses together and have you give your comments on them, please.

Genesis 27:19 • Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”
Psalm 5:5b-6 • You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, LORD, detest.
Malachi 1:2b-3a • “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated."

Jacob lied to get Isaac's blessing. God hates liars. God loved Jacob. How do you explain this series of verses?

Question 5

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the conversation we've been having is that nobody took the time to address the New Testament passages I mentioned, and how they were relevant to the discussion, and how they should have influenced Platt's exegesis. I'll repost the verses here for your reflection.

Romans 5:8 • But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
John 3:16-17 • For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
1 John 4:10 • This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:19 • We love because he first loved us.

So, does God hate sinners, or does he love them?

Question 6

If God is love, how can there be any hate within him? Keep in mind, I'm not talking about judgment. I'm not talking about wrath against sin. I'm talking about hatred, the passionate disliking of someone to the point of active oppression and antagonism.

Question 7

Jesus says, in John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” If the world recognizes the disciples of Jesus by their love, what does that say about Jesus? What does that say about the Father, the one about whom he said in John 5:19, "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

•••••

There are probably other questions that have been floating around in my mind this past week, but this will do for now. Some of these are meant to clarify, some are meant to challenge. Perhaps they won't do either, I don't know. But I would like hear from you.

One final note, which may explain, a bit further, why I've written what I have.

I think it's important to point out that, when you or David Platt or Mark Driscoll or whomever says "God hates sinners", you're not saying, "God judges sinners apart from Christ." You may think you're saying that, but you're not. Judgment and hatred are not the same thing. So even if what all this boils down to is semantics, the semantics are crucial, particularly for an unbelieving world that already believes God hates them because the Church has done a terrible job of loving them. If it's just semantics, then to say, "God hates sinners" so smugly as Platt said it is pastorally irresponsible.

Why I Criticized David Platt on My Blog

2011-12-12T15:13:00.001-05:00

Last week was rather eventful at the blog. I wrote a post openly criticizing David Platt for preaching that God hates sinners, and took some heat for it. Admittedly, I didn't pull any punches, and several people read that as being judgmental. While I don't think I was being judgmental, my criticism was strong. So why did I do it?

Some people commented that I should have gone directly to him with this issue, with Matthew 18 serving as a biblical model for this. There are plenty of reasons why I didn't do that, the most obvious being that this is not about sin, and I am not a part of his local faith community. However, because of his celebrity and the prevalence of social media, he is a part of my local faith community. His teaching, and the teaching of many of the most famous pastors, reaches into almost every evangelical church in the country. In fact, many Christians trust preachers like Platt or Driscoll more than the pastor in their own church!

For these reasons, I thought it was appropriate to offer my thoughts on this particular message, which had come up in a previous conversation within our community. I expressed these thoughts privately before blogging them, but since this is the second famous preacher I've heard say this stuff, I thought it worthwhile to speak out publicly against it.

One of the problems of pastoral celebrity is that these preachers often have influence within a congregation that is infinitely disproportionate to their participation, being that their participation is zero. Of course, any healthy congregation will be open to influences from the broader Church, but when one of those influencers goes awry in some way, it is the responsibility of the local pastor to offer a correction for the sake of that particular congregation. That was what I attempted to do in my posts last week.

Ember Monday

2011-12-12T13:32:00.000-05:00

Last night we had our first prayer service at Ember. Tim led us in the service, and he did a fantastic job! He said it was his first public speaking / preaching opportunity, but you never would have known it. He led us through the Lord's Prayer, and then through Gabriel's appearance to Zechariah, where God promised that Elizabeth would bear a child, who turned out to be John the Baptist.

We spent a good amount of time praying as an entire church body for the church. That was such an encouragement to my soul. You really get to hear people's hearts when they pray, and I'm very excited about where Ember folks are at. God's going to keep on moving in our midst!

Ember Prayer Service

2011-12-09T11:06:00.001-05:00

I'm going to take a break from talking about God and hatred to announce that this Sunday night we're having our first Ember Prayer service! This is the brainchild of Tim Evans, one of the members of our Pastoral Care Team, and I'm so excited to see how God is going to move as we come before him in prayer. We're still going to have some songs to sing, but in place of the sermon Tim is going to be walking us through some times of prayer. If you have any emotional, physical, or spiritual needs that require prayer, please come out this Sunday at 5pm to be prayed over. Let's come before God's throne with faith and confidence, and be expectant that he will move!

How I Read the Bible

2011-12-08T10:39:00.001-05:00

The discussion on the "hatred" of God has generated quite a bit of buzz, at least relatively so to the scope and reach of this blog. My post from a couple days ago, Does God Hate Sinners?, is already the fourth most read post at The Sometimes Preacher. My interactions with some folks have lead me to this post, which is an explanation of how I read the Bible.

We all approach the Scriptures carrying particular baggage and with a particular framework. Most of us come to the Bible knowing very little about it, and it all seems so overwhelming. How can I make sense of this? What relevance does this have to my life? I call this the Biblical Fog, but it's really biblical illiteracy, and I fear that the overwhelming majority of Christians, today, fall into this category. We simply have not been taught how to approach the Scriptures, how to interpret them and apply them for our lives today. So we wander about in a fog, never really picking up the Bible, and when we do, never grasping God's word. It doesn't have to be that way, and I can help, but that's another post for another time.

Another approach to the Scriptures is called Systematic Theology. In this approach, the Bible is a wellspring of doctrine and theology (as well as practical issues for life) ready to be categorized into an ordered system of belief. This is, generally, the approach that the scholars of the Church have taken for the past 200 years or more. "What do you believe about X?" "Well, let me go to Book A, Chapter B, Verse C and I'll tell you, after I follow up on all the cross-references." This approach has many strengths, but it is fundamentally flawed because it does not consider the manner in which the Bible was created.

I believe that the Bible is God's Redemptive History. It extends into the deep past, to the very beginning, and anticipates the end of the present age to a new beginning. In the middle is all that God has done to redeem humanity, destroy sin and evil and death, and become the true King of the Cosmos. The Bible is the story that invites us to become participants. It is not Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth so much as it is a play in search of actors--the play that is, in fact, the truest reality, to which all the other stories of the world are mere shadow puppetry. The Bible is the Story that defines my life--past, present, and future--because it is the story of how God made all that exists, how it went wrong, what he has done to make it right again, and what he will do to finally consummate that process of making-all-things-right.

For this reason, I must pay the utmost respect to the manner in which God created the Bible--its authors, its times, its contexts, its audiences. God sovereignly directed the Bible to be written by dozens of authors over almost 1500 years under wildly divergent circumstances. I cannot dishonor this incredible work of the Holy Spirit by disregarding the historical nature of Scripture and still hope to fully understand the end result of the Spirit's work. That is an arrogance of the worst order.

So I pay attention to the history of Scripture. I seek to understand it within its own context before I try to apply it to my context. I believe that the Bible was the Word of God to someone else before it became the Word of God for me. As I've said elsewhere, two principles that guide me are:

The Bible cannot mean what it never meant.
If we don't understand the Scriptures in their historical context, we'll never understand them at all.

I try to immerse myself in the Scriptures by entering the world of it's authors and first readers. Besides prayer, this has been more profitable than anything else I have done in my studies. So that's how I read the Bible, and that's why I write the things I do on this blog, and preach the things I preach at Ember. My aim is always to honor the Scriptures for what they are, to enter the world in which they were written, and to participate in the new world they are creating.

Biblical Hatred

2011-12-07T11:33:00.001-05:00

Corey, who I hate, posted a comment in yesterday's post about biblical hatred. What is it? Why is it there? What's it all about? Well, the short answer is this: "Shut up, Corey! Don't let me ever see your stupid face around these parts again!" (For those of you who don't know about my friendship with Corey, our love language is hatred. It's complicated.)

According to a quick search on biblegateway.com, the English word "hate" appears 127 times in the NIV. ("Love" appears 686 times.) The majority of these passages do not have God as the subject of the verb, to hate. But there are some that do, and the object is occasionally human beings.

As I wrote yesterday, I don't believe that God hates sinners. The biblical evidence is, in my opinion, overwhelmingly in favor of the position that God loves sinners. The whole arc of redemptive history leads us to the cross, where God's agape love is most clearly on display.

What, then, are we to do with these hatred passages? Hatred is the intense or passionate dislike of someone or something. But the term has deeper connotations in our culture, implying oppression, ridicule, and antagonism. The imagery that gets conjured in our heads when we say, "God hates [whomever]", is of fiery destruction and torment--which is to say, of hell. But is that biblical hatred, properly applied to God? I don't think so.

Throughout the Scriptures, God relates to people through covenants. A covenant is basically an agreement between two parties, one greater and one lesser. God made covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David in the Old Testament. When God chose someone with whom to make a covenant, this person was seen as particularly loved, blessed, and accepted. When God chose to not make a covenant with someone (Esau, for example), this person was viewed as rejected, hated, and cursed. I believe that biblical hatred, with God as the subject, is covenant rejection, and does not imply divine oppression, ridicule, or antagonism.

God's hatred is exclusively linked to his covenant-making choices. When the Psalmist proclaims that "God hates liars", it is because liars and evildoers and murderers are actively breaking the stipulations of God's covenant with Israel. "Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not kill." And so on. When you break the stipulations of a covenant, you stand to receive the curses, or punishments, outlined within that covenant. Which is to say, you will receive the wrath and judgment of God. This doesn't mean that God hates you, in the 21st-century American sense of the word, but that you must suffer the consequences of breaking his covenant.

Fortunately, we live under a new and better covenant, the one made by Jesus through his spilled blood and broken body. This is a covenant of grace that comes to us through faith in Christ, and it was made because of God's deep love for humanity. And this new and better covenant depends on the faithfulness of Christ, and not our own perfect obedience. Praise God we live in such a time!

Does God Hate Sinners?

2011-12-06T09:37:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine pointed me to this video of a sermon by David Platt, author of Radical. In this sermon, Platt argues that God both loves and hates sinners. You can watch the video for yourself, and then read my response below.

The first point I would make is this: Platt commits an exegetical fallacy by relying on the Psalms to make his theological point. The Psalms are Israel's Prayer-Song Book. They were, as Fee & Stuart point out in their classic book on exegesis, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, "addressed to the mind through the heart". (207) The Psalms use emotional language in order to draw out an emotional response from the worshipper. More from Fee & Stuart:

The psalms themselves are musical poems. A musical poem...is intended to appeal to the emotions, to evoke feelings rather than propositional thinking, and to stimulate a response on the part of the individual that goes beyond a mere cognitive understanding of certain facts. ...While psalms contain and reflect doctrine, they are not intended to be repositories for doctrinal exposition. Thus it is dangerous to read a psalm as though it taught a system of doctrine. (207-8)

I'm not sure who taught Platt how to do exegesis, but the fact that he doesn't understand this basic exegetical concept, and relies exclusively on the Psalms to make a rather bold and daring theological claim, troubles me deeply. This is a man with a wide reach within the Church, but he doesn't seem to know how to handle the Scriptures. This, by the way, is a major reason why I didn't like Radical, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. In my judgment, Platt simply, and consistently, fails the exegesis test.

The second point I would make is this: The Hebrew word we translate "hate" means rejection, and particularly rejection according to the covenant. While it can also mean "despise" or "abhor", we must be careful with this word, particularly when we apply it as God's heart toward human beings.

The third point I would make is this: The truest thing about you is not that you are a sinner, as the neo-Reformists would have us believe, but that you are created in the image of God. The work of Satan cannot completely undo the work of God. He is not that strong. The first thing that was ever true about humanity was not that they were sinners, but that they were created by God in his very own image, and no amount of sin or temptation unleashed by the forces of hell can rewrite that history.

The doctrine of total depravity spits on the work and power of God because it makes the tacit point that Satan's de-creative acts are stronger than God's creative acts. False. God's creation is stronger than Satan's attempts at de-creation. Has the devil perverted God's work? Yes. Has he distorted it? Yes. Has he broken it? Yes. Has he undone it? Has he completely destroyed it? No. We are created in the image of God, and that is a fact of redemptive history.

The fourth point I would make is this: God is agape love. At least according to John the apostle. If God is love--the love that lays down its life, surrenders its rights, and forgives all offenses--can there be any room for hatred? If love is something that God fundamentally is, at the core of his being, how can he hate?

The fifth point I would make is this: Platt makes another exegetical fallacy by not working out his theology within the larger biblical context. In other words, Read the New Testament! Here are just a few samplings:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:8
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. -John 3:16-17
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. -1 John 4:10
We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19

I don't know how to make this point any clearer: God loved us with the strongest force in the universe, with the agape love that resides at the core of his being, with that unbreakable bond which binds the Trinity together, before we believed in him. God loved us before we loved him, and his love is not so flimsy or wishy-washy as to leave any room for hatred. God loves sinners, and his love is too big, too full, too rich, and too deep to leave any room for hatred.

So I make this conclusion: No, David Platt; No, Mark Driscoll, God does not hate sinners. He loves them. He loves them enough to send his Son to die as an atoning sacrifice for their sins. What is lacking in the cross that makes you think that God hates anybody? What is lacking in all that God has done for us that would leave room in your heart and mind for a hatred of sinners coming from the heart of God? What else does he need to do to convince you that he doesn't hate you, or anybody else for that matter?

And, for the love of God, who taught you how to read and teach the Scriptures?! Your misunderstanding of basic exegetical principles and misapplication of Scriptures is astounding. It would be comic if your reach weren't so vast. But it's tragic. Please pick up Fee & Stuart's book and read it. Your churches, and evangelicalism in general, needs you to get the Scriptures right.

Ember Monday

2011-12-05T12:20:00.001-05:00

I have no idea what happened in the service last night, because I was hanging out with our kids (and my wife) in the children's ministry. I do know that Travis Ell finished up our series on Titus, called Further the Faith, with a sermon from Titus 3. I also know that we started singing some Christmas songs, and that the band brought out a number of unique instruments, including the dulcimer, the pump organ, and a xylophone-type-thingy (I'm so knowledgeable about music).

In the children's ministry we played Jericho. I built a wall that we marched around seven times. Well, actually, we only made it about 2 and a half times before Zeke and Stella started tearing it down. Then Cyrus kicked part of the wall into Eisley's face, which brought out the tears, of course. Later on, we decided to play Jericho on the slide, so I built up walls that the kids took turns knocking down as they came down the slide. That was fun!

If you missed the service last night, you can still listen to the sermon in our sermon player. I know I'm looking forward to hearing from Travis!

Book Review: The King Jesus Gospel

2011-12-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Scot McKnight's latest book, The King Jesus Gospel, is a revolution for evangelicalism. It is an incredibly important and timely work, one which calls us to leave behind our "salvation-culture" and take up, once again, the "gospel-culture" set forth by the preaching of Jesus and the apostles.

I've worked through a little over half of the book on the blog already. My discussion of the first three chapters, which lays the groundwork by establishing the problem McKnight sets out to address, can be found here. The second post on the book, which dealt exclusively with chapter four, in which he lays out the book's thesis and defines the apostolic Gospel, can be found here. The last post I wrote on the book covered chapter 5, where Scot discusses how salvation overtook the Gospel.

Here is a brief sketch of the main points of the book:

We evangelicals have mistaken the Plan of Salvation for the Gospel.
We have traded in a gospel culture for a salvation culture.
Our evangelism focuses exclusively on bringing people to a point of decision.
As a result, we do a poor job of making genuine disciples of Jesus.
The biblical gospel is the Story of Jesus, found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

In that last post I promised to cover the final two chapters of the book in a future post. So without further ado, I shall keep my promise.

Chapter 9: Gospeling Today

The way that we "gospel", or evangelize, today is different from the way the early believers, including the apostles, evangelized. (Scot likes to use the word "gospel" as a verb, so I'll put it that way from now on.) He sees several points of comparison, the first of which is what gospeling seeks to accomplish. "The gospeling of Acts, because it declares the saving significance of Jesus, Messiah and Lord, summons listeners to confess Jesus as Messiah and Lord, while our gospeling seeks to persuade sinners to admit their sin and find Jesus as their Savior." (133) He goes on to say, "the gospeling of the apostles in the book of Acts is bold declaration that leads to a summons while much of evangelism today is crafty persuasion." (134) Ouch!

I'll skip to the fourth point of comparison between the gospeling of the first Christians and our own evangelism--the problem gospeling resolves. What is the problem that the Gospel solves? Without minimizing sin and the need for forgiveness and reconciliation, Scot frames the solution this way: "The fundamental solution in the gospel is that Jesus is Messiah and Lord; this means there was a fundamental need for a ruler, a king, and a lord." (137) He says much more on this point, and I want to tempt you to get the book and read it for yourself with this quote:

Gospeling declares that Jesus is [the] rightful Lord, gospeling summons people to turn from their idols to worship and live under that Lord who saves, and gospeling actually puts us in the co-mediating and co-ruling tasks under our Lord Jesus. (142)

Chapter 10: Creating a Gospel Culture

So now what? How do we go about creating this gospel culture that we so desperately need? The first thing we must do is become people of the story. "To become a gospel culture we've got to begin with becoming people of the Book, but not just as a Book but as the story that shapes us." (153) Too many of us are functionally biblically illiterate. We are more profoundly shaped by the doctrines and dogmas that we extract from the Scriptures than by the overarching story God is telling within them; and while there are many dogmas, there is only one Story.

We must also become people of the story of Jesus. "We need to immerse ourselves even more into the Story of Jesus. The gospel is that the Story of Israel comes to its definitive completeness in the Story of Jesus, and this means we have to become People of the Story-that-is-complete-in-Jesus." (153) We must return to the four Gospels!

Thirdly, we must become people of the church's story. "We need to see how the apostles' writings take the Story of Israel and the Story of Jesus into the next generation and into a different culture, and how this generation led all the way to our generation." (155) Christianity was not invented in 1865; it has come down to us through nearly 100 generations of believers. There is much we can learn from them. "We have no right to ignore what God has been doing in the community of Jesus since the day he sent the Spirit to empower it, ennoble it, and guide it." (156)

There is more to say on these points, and Scot presents two other important points to create a gospel culture, but this is a book review, not a book report. Here is my review: Read this book!

Now I want to say one thing that Scot doesn't about how to create a gospel culture, and I say this to my fellow preachers out there. Preach the Gospel! Stop participating in the damnable story of American Consumerism & Pragmatism. Stop trying to draw a crowd. Stop preaching the no-Gospel of Success & Self-Improvement. That is not your task. That is not your calling. You are a minister of the Gospel, so preach it!

Your sermons shape your congregation and define its culture, and too many of you are creating a culture that is nothing more than a slightly more moral version of the wider American culture. You're telling the wrong story. You cannot create a gospel-culture unless and until you preach the Gospel. This will most likely take you down a new path, one that you probably won't like. You will have to say goodbye to the Story of Success and Fame and Power. But you'll discover that the Gospel is worth it.

May the Church's preachers become gospelers, that we all might learn to live out the Gospel, boldly proclaiming that Jesus Christ is King-over-All.

Between Appearances

2011-11-29T10:57:00.001-05:00

Last week I preached on Titus 2:11-15, which, as I wrote yesterday, is such an incredible passage you could preach it 8 different ways and still not exhaust its richness and depth. I wanted to spend some more time with some themes I touched on briefly, and perhaps put them a better, more understandable way.

According to the text, we live between two appearances: the past appearance of the grace of God, and the future appearance of the glory of God. Meaning, God has broken into our world in a significant way through the Incarnation of Christ, and his subsequent death and resurrection. This is the appearance of the grace of God. But God will also break into our world, again, in an equally significant, if not more magnificent, way when Jesus returns to judge the world and take his place as its rightful king. This is the appearance of the glory of God.

We live between these appearances, but that doesn't mean that we're just sitting around reminiscing about the past and waiting for the future. The middle isn't empty--it's full! Now is the only time and here is the only place we've been given to work out the past (the appearance of the grace of God) in the hope of the future (the appearance of the glory of God). It's in the middle that we are transformed by the power of the Gospel, of Christ working in us through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

So what do we do? We prepare for the return of the king by ruling and reigning in his name and according to his purposes. This means that we take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, not merely to bring salvation to all people, but also to extend the rule and reign of Jesus the King to every heart and home on earth. We're not simply in the heaven-assurance business, we're also heralds of a new kingdom--a kingdom that is crashing against the kingdoms of the world. We are the ambassadors of this kingdom, endowed with authority by the king, and commissioned with a message of good news for all mankind.

As ambassadors of the king, then, we must see to it that his rule and reign is extended to every corner of our own hearts and minds, and that it is evident in every aspect of our lives. Not only are we heralds and ambassadors, we are also citizens of this new kingdom, and our lives must reflect this new citizenship. So, in all things, we surrender to the King who surrendered the benefits of divinity to become like us in every way, dying for our sins, and rising again in power.

He is coming again, so don't just wait around. The time between appearances is full of opportunity and challenge and adventure. I challenge you to orient your mind and heart between these appearances, and live accordingly, in the power of the Holy Spirit who is within you through faith in Christ.

Ember Monday

2011-11-28T11:40:00.001-05:00

What a week! I was so glad to get back to church last night after a week of family celebrations. It felt like a lot longer than 7 days had passed since we had church!

Last night I preached from Titus 2:11-15. This is a powerful text that could be preached 8 different ways. Some texts are too big to fit into one sermon, and this is definitely one of those passages. The sermon was called The Story of Your Life, and the basic premise was this: The Gospel is the controlling story of our lives. Only when we learn to find ourselves between the appearance of God's grace (the crucifixion and resurrection) and the appearance of God's glory (the return of Christ), will we learn to live with resurrection power and hope today.

We had a guest worship leader last night, as well. Garth & Kelly invited their friend Jason to come worship with us, and we're so grateful that he came! Jason did an excellent job for us, and we all agreed that he should definitely come back soon.

You can listen to the sermon on the sermon player on this blog, or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes through this super-complicated process:

Open iTunes.
Click Advanced, then click Subscribe to Podcast....
In the box, type this address: http://sermon.net/EmberChurch/rss/.

For whatever reason, you can't find our podcast in the iTunes directory. I'll spare you the details, but if you follow those 3 steps, you'll be subscribed and it will automatically update.

Limiting the Gospel

2011-11-17T10:27:00.001-05:00

This past week at church I talked about one of the ways that we tend to change the Gospel: We limit the Gospel by thinking it applies to everyone but us. "Sure," we think, "Jesus died for everybody's sins. Everybody but me. I still have to work my way back to God. God will only accept me today if I manage to commit little to no sin."

Do you do this? I do it. Many of the great saints of the past did this. It's easier to believe in God's love and grace for others than for yourself. Maybe we think that's humble, or noble. It's not. It's stupid.

You cannot earn the Gospel. The Gospel is a record of historical facts:

Christ Jesus died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.
He was buried.
He rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures.
He appeared to many.

You can no more earn the Gospel than you can earn the American Revolution. It already happened! All that you can do with the Gospel is receive it or reject it. You either receive it as it is or you reject it. Any twisting, limiting, changing, or adding to the Gospel is a rejection of the Gospel. It is disbelief.

The facts of what God has done in the past (the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus) indicate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God loves you right now. (Unless you go to Mark Driscoll's church, in which case God hates you...at least according to Mark Driscoll.) So quit trying to be noble and self-sufficient, and quit feeling sorry for yourself. The Gospel has happened! Receive it, and let it be the defining story of your life.

A Summary of My Take on the Rapture

2011-11-15T12:41:00.001-05:00

I've written extensively about my disbelief in the rapture, so I don't want to belabor the point too much. The only reason I'm writing about it again is because I mentioned my disbelief at church this past Sunday, and I know that alarmed some folks.

Here are two of the principles that guide me as I study and teach the Scriptures:

The Bible cannot mean what it never meant.
If we don't understand the Scriptures in their historical context, we'll never understand them at all.

God wrote the Scriptures when he did, through whom he did, for his own purposes and according to his sovereign choice. In other words, if Paul, John, Matthew and Jesus didn't believe in a rapture, then there is no rapture. And if they did, then there will be. We don't get to come along and change the meaning of any biblical text for any reason thousands of years after the fact. My contention is that there is no rapture in Scripture. So let's look, briefly, at the relevant passages.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

This really seems to be the perfect description of the rapture, but as I've written here, a little bit of historical context will help us to understand what Paul is writing about here. In order for this to be the rapture as we popularly understand it, the second coming of Christ must pause halfway between heaven and earth, somewhere in the sky. Then, all believers will fly up to meet him and stay with him there, in the sky, for either 3 1/2 or 7 years. But Paul calls it "the coming of the Lord", so we know that he won't turn around and go back into heaven. He is coming here. There must be a better explanation.

Thessalonica was a Roman colony at the time Paul wrote this letter to the Christians there. Whenever a high-ranking Roman official, or even the emperor himself, visited a colony or a city, the inhabitants of that city would go out to meet him and escort him back into the town. In other words, they didn't wait until the emperor got to the city walls to throw open the gates. They're not going to make him ring the doorbell. How much more will we do the same for Jesus, when he returns from heaven? Surely we will go up to meet him (which means we'll be able to fly! Awesome!) and escort him back to earth, where he will take his place as the rightful king of creation. This, not a rapture or a half-return, is what Paul has in mind in this passage.

Matthew 24:36-41

Okay, this one is obvious, right? Well, as I've explained here, no. In this passage, the controlling metaphor is the great flood, where all who suffered the judgment of God were "taken away". As it was in the flood, so will it be at the return of Christ. In fact, it may not even be a literal "taking away"; Jesus may just be using the language of the flood to talk about the punishment of the judgment of God. Regardless, being taken away is not being rescued from tribulation, but being fully judged by God apart from the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

John 14:2-3

I never thought of this passage in John as a rapture passage, but a friend of mine did, so I commented on it here. It's a bit too complicated to break down briefly, but I highly recommend you read that post to get a sense for what is going on in this passage.

I believe that I've demonstrated that there is no rapture in the Bible. This was an unfamiliar concept to every NT author. In fact, each one of them was intimately familiar to suffering within the various tribulations of their lives. You might even say that suffering, not escape from it, was one of God's most assured promises.

So much of what drives our belief in the rapture is fear. We are terrified of the Great Tribulation, and we want desperately to escape it. So when someone offers us a rapture out of suffering, we greatly rejoice. But we are not promised escape from troubles. Jesus didn't get it. Paul didn't get it. Millions of Christians today aren't getting it. The power of Christ is most clearly seen in us when we persevere through the suffering caused by trials and tribulations.

Now let me say a word about the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation is not simply about the future; it is about the past, the present, and the future. Let me put it this way: There have been thousands of antichrists and Great Tribulations, there are presently thousands of antichrists and Great Tribulations, and there will be thousands of antichrists and Great Tribulations. The book of Revelation is about the Great Tribulation that Rome inflicted on the Church, but it is also about every tribulation and persecution that has been waged against the Church because it presents Christ Jesus as Cosmic Victor and us, his Church and Bride, as victorious in him. The book of Revelation was written to encourage all persecuted believers, in every place and in every time, to persevere under the weight of their persecution because, in Christ, we are eternally victorious over the forces of Satan and his antichrists.

You're not meant to be taken out of the arena; you're meant to win the fight, kill the beasts, and overcome your opponents because that is what Christ has already done, and what he will do fully when he returns. A rapture would undermine everything. A rapture would surrender the earth to Satan. God has no intention of giving any ground to hell.

I hope that what I've presented here both reassures and encourages you. Whether you're convinced or not doesn't matter much to me. This is my view. Ember Church takes no official stance on this issue. People of all eschatological persuasions are welcome! But whether you believe in the rapture or not, I want you to hear this: Do not fear the end. The end is glorious. The end is victory for all who are in Christ. The end is bliss. Make sure you get there. Don't try to escape your trials, but persevere through them.

Ember Monday

2011-11-14T12:01:00.001-05:00

Last night at Ember we continued our series on Titus, called Further the Faith. I spoke out of Titus 1:10-16, and the message was called Black Hat. (I'll upload the message later today.) The basic idea of the sermon was that anyone who adds anything to the Gospel wears a black hat--is a bad guy. Paul charged Titus to "silence" the group of people who were disrupting the churches on Crete by preaching a false gospel. They were "Judaizers" who demanded that Gentiles convert fully into Judaism in order to be saved.

I asked some tough questions in the sermon like: "Can you be a Christian and believe in evolution? Can you be a Christian and not believe in hell? Can you be a Christian and be gay?" These are difficult questions because they challenge our understanding of the Gospel, and quite possibly reveal some of the things that we have added onto the Gospel, like certain doctrinal, religious, or behavioral tests.

Then I dropped a bomb on the church when I mentioned that I don't believe in the rapture. This can be hard to hear from your pastor, I know. I'll try to clarify and summarize my position on the rapture later, but for now, you can go here to see everything I've written on it. I apologize for any extra snark in those posts. I was a jerk before I became a pastor. ...Was...

The music team has been slowly but surely adding new voices and talents into the mix, and last night was the first time that Evan Staggs joined the team. Yay, Evan! It was also the first time that Garth was not on stage, so of course he was running the sound board. The response time was really powerful, for me anyway. Heather Noble did a fantastic job of leading us in a slow, but powerful, version of Jesus Paid It All. I know I say this a lot, but I really, really love the music at Ember.

I also love the ideas that people bring to the table. When the band was rehearsing, they mentioned that Charlie could play Taps in honor of Veteran's Day. I hadn't even thought about doing anything for Veteran's Day, but they convinced me it would not only be awesome, but appropriate. So Charlie went into the back hallway at the start of the service, we closed the sanctuary doors, and he played a moving rendition of Taps. I love my church. Sunday nights are my favorite time of the week. Come join us next Sunday at 5!

The King Jesus Gospel | Part 3

2011-11-10T14:53:00.000-05:00

I've been working my way through Scot McKnight's book, The King Jesus Gospel, here on the blog for the past couple of days. I want to recap what I've learned in the first four chapters.

We evangelicals have mistaken the Plan of Salvation for the Gospel.
We have traded in a gospel culture for a salvation culture.
Our evangelism focuses exclusively on bringing people to a point of decision.
As a result, we do a poor job of making genuine disciples of Jesus.
The biblical gospel is the Story of Jesus, found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

What is most impressive about this book is how clearly and concisely Scot paint the American evangelical landscape. His putting his finger on some things that have been brooding beneath the surface for a long time. So how did we get here?

Chapter 5: How Did Salvation Take Over the Gospel?

The early creeds were the Church's attempt to work out the Story of Jesus, the Gospel. They served to create a gospel culture that survived, though didn't always thrive, until the Reformation. "The singular contribution of the Reformation...was that the gravity of the gospel was shifted toward human response and personal responsibility. ...The Reformation said, in effect, that the 'gospel' must lead to personal salvation." (71)

The Reformation did not create this salvation culture immediately, but it set into action processes by which the old gospel culture was discarded, and the new salvation culture was embraced. "The Story of...Jesus became the System of Salvation." (72) Now we have a Christian culture that is obsessed with salvation, which is merely one of the many benefits of the gospel. The fact that we can go to heaven when we die is good news, but it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Rather, it comes to those who believe the gospel, and in that belief, order their lives by it.

My next post on the book will cover the final two chapters, with a particular emphasis on how we create a gospel culture today. I'm skipping the intervening chapters, not because they aren't any good, but because I feel as though I ought to leave something for you to discover when you read the book.

The King Jesus Gospel | Part 2

2011-11-09T10:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I began writing about Scot McKnight's excellent new book, The King Jesus Gospel. I covered the prologue and first 3 chapters, and I've written his basic thesis this way: The Plan of Salvation is not the Gospel, and by mistaking the former for the latter we have created a salvation culture that misses the deep truths of the gospel, emphasizes decision over discipleship, and, as a result, fails to make true disciples of Jesus. This insight is crucial for us to understand, and we evangelicals need to make the switch from a salvation culture to a gospel culture if we want to fulfill the Great Commission, which was to "make disciples", not "make converts". Because of the way we (mis)understand the gospel, and the methods we use to present it, we are doing an excellent job of making converts, but we are no better than the Catholic Church at making disciples.

Before I get into the content of the next chapter, I'd like to give some of my own reflections on his book thus far. I believe that we evangelicals have created a salvation culture because we undervalue (or even disdain) life on earth. The temporal pales in significance to the eternal, we say, as though the two were pitted against one another. But this life and the life to come are intimately bound up together within the life of God, which is both infinite and eternal. The life we live on earth is a small but significant part of eternity. The temporal is within the eternal. Salvation is not merely for then; salvation is for now.

We are also simultaneously terrified of and fascinated by hell. Though the most common biblical command is, "Fear not", we use fear as a motivator to get people saved. So much of our evangelistic strategies are built on the motivation to escape hell, and we certainly prey on people's fears of eternal damnation. There may be a time when that is appropriate, but the fear of hell is not what drives the Gospel.

Perhaps both of these lines of thinking could be fleshed out more, but this post is supposed to be about Scot McKnight's book. So on to chapter 4 and a definition of the Gospel.

Chapter 4: The Apostolic Gospel of Paul

If the Plan of Salvation is not the Gospel, then what is? How do we define it? The natural place to begin would be in the Bible. But where do we look? The answer might surprise you. We don't start in Matthew, or Mark, or Luke or John. We start with Paul, and we go to 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians was probably written before any of the Gospels were written--sometime around 53 AD or so. What we find at the beginning of chapter 15 is "the oral tradition about the gospel that every New Testament apostle received and then passed on. ...This passage is the apostolic gospel tradition." (46) Scot breaks the relevant portions of chapter 15 into three parts: v. 1-2; v. 3-5; v. 20-28. The fundamental gospel, though, is found in the second part:

³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.

This is the Gospel. "If we begin here, we take the first step in creating a gospel culture." (48) This was the Gospel that drove the early church, but we have forgotten it.

The authentic apostolic gospel, the gospel Paul received and passed on...concerns these events in the life of Jesus:
that Christ died,
that Christ was buried,
that Christ was raised,
and that Christ appeared.
The gospel is the story of the crucial events in the life of Jesus Christ. Instead of "four spiritual laws," which for many holds up our salvation culture, the earliest gospel concerned four "events"...in the life of Jesus Christ. (49)

The Gospel is not, first and foremost, about getting to heaven (or escaping hell). It's not driven by fear. In fact, it's not even a proposition that can be driven by anything. It's the Story of Jesus--his death (for our sins), his burial, his resurrection, and his appearances. The Gospel is not the Plan of Salvation. "Salvation--the robust salvation of God--is the intended result of the gospel story about Jesus Christ that completes the Story of Israel in the Old Testament." (51)

So what? What's the big deal? Isn't it more important that people go to heaven when they die than that we understand what the Gospel is or isn't? No, it's not. Jesus didn't die so you could go to heaven when you die. He died for your sins--the ones that plague you in the here and now and turn your world, at times, into a living hell for yourself and those around you. Here's the warning:

When the plan gets separated from the story, the plan almost always becomes abstract, propositional, logical, rational, and philosophical and, most importantly, de-storified and unbiblical. When we separate the Plan of Salvation from the story, we cut ourselves off [from] the story that identifies us and tells our past and tells our future. We separate ourselves from Jesus and turn the Christian faith into a System of Salvation. (62)

We are not saved by a plan. We are not saved within a system. We are saved by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

How have we gotten where we are? How have we replaced the gospel culture with our salvation culture? More on that tomorrow...

The King Jesus Gospel | Part 1

2011-11-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've worked my way through the first three chapters of Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel, and I am both challenged and impressed. This is the "wrecking ball" that Rob Bell thought he was writing in Love Wins. Scot is deconstructing the nature of the gospel within evangelicalism, and calling us to a more faithful, more biblical reading of the gospel. Because the chapters of the book are so short, and so dense, I'd like to interact with this book on a chapter-by-chapter basis, rather than write a general review after I've read it.

Prologue: 1971

Scot begins with the story of his first encounter with personal evangelism--it's a story that many young evangelicals can resonate with. The extreme discomfort. The awkwardness. The insecure silence. Evangelism is a horrible and terrifying experience for so many because we can't help but feel as though we're on a high-pressure sales call, and we're the ones making the pitch! Evangelism, in evangelicalism, is about bringing people to the point of decision. This, Scot argues, represents a break from historical Christianity. "Most of evangelism today is obsessed with getting someone to make a decision; the apostles, however, were obsessed with making disciples." (18)

There are dire consequences for our decision-oriented evangelism. "Evangelism that focuses on decisions short circuits and...aborts the design of the gospel, while evangelism that aims at discipleship slows down to offer the full gospel of Jesus and the apostles." (18) We are "distorting spiritual formation" through our decision-aimed evangelism because we are diminishing the importance of discipleship. Scot has strong words for us: "There is a minimal difference in correlation between evangelical children and teenagers who make a decision for Christ and who later become genuine disciples, and Roman Catholics who are baptized as infants and who as adults become faithful and devout Catholic disciples." (20) In other words, we're no better than the Catholic Church at making true and faithful disciples, and much of the blame for our failure can be laid at the feet of our perception of the Gospel and our aims in evangelism.

Chapter 1: The Big Question

The big question facing evangelicalism is this: What is the gospel? Scot claims that we are in a fog regarding the gospel, and I think he's right. For most evangelicals, the gospel is vague. We can't define it concretely, much less biblically. To demonstrate this, Scot offers three exhibits.

Exhibit A is from an emailer who asked the question, "What is good news about the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the descendant of David?" Exhibit B is John Piper's assumption that justification is the gospel. Exhibit C is a pastor who shared Piper's view and flatly asserted that Jesus did not preach the gospel because "no one could understand the gospel until after the cross and the resurrection and Pentecost." (26) Scot concludes "the word gospel has been hijacked by what we believe about 'personal salvation,' and the gospel itself has been reshaped to facilitate making 'decisions.'" (26)

I think he's absolutely right about this, and I think the view that justification is the gospel is very prevalent due, in large part, to the popularity of the neo-reformed preaching of John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Francis Chan, David Platt, and others. What is more, pastors like Steven Furtick have taken the gospel as "personal salvation mediated through a decision" to its logical extreme, with more than 10,000 "salvations" in the short life of his church. And now we get to the key distinction Scot is making in his book.

Chapter 2: Gospel Culture or Salvation Culture?

Have you ever considered that there might be a difference between the two?

Evangelicalism is known for at least two words: gospel and (personal) salvation. Behind the word gospel is the Greek word euangelion and evangel, from which words we get evangelicalism and evangelism. Now to our second word. Behind salvation is the Greek word soteria. I want now to make a stinging accusation. In this book I will be contending firmly that we evangelicals (as a whole) are not really "evangelical" in the sense of the apostolic gospel, but instead we are soterians. Here's why I say we are more soterian than evangelical: we evangelicals (mistakenly) equate the word gospel with the word salvation. ...When we evangelicals see the word gospel, our instinct is to think (personal) "salvation." We are wired this way. But these two words don't mean the same thing. (29)

We have replaced the gospel with personal salvation. Maybe it's because we're so pragmatic, but all that seems to matter to us evangelicals is where one spends eternity. Salvation is our number one priority, and the only way to be certain of one's salvation is if one has made a personal decision to accept Jesus. "When did you get saved?"

But a salvation culture is not a gospel culture. Think about it. Do you need to be a disciple in order to be saved? How do you answer that question? How might Jesus answer it? The fundamental problem of the salvation culture is that it doesn't require discipleship, and so discipleship doesn't happen. And this is why so many people live nominally Christian existences, blindly ignorant of the Scriptures and the primary tenets of their faith, and ultimately trusting, not in Jesus, but in the decision they made at Christian Summer Camp between 6th and 7th grade--a decision from which they have failed to progress or build upon in the decades following. But "the gospel of Jesus...which created a gospel culture and not simply a salvation culture, was a gospel that carried within it the power, the capacity, and the requirement to summon people who wanted to be 'in' to be The Discipled." (33)

Chapter 3: From Story to Salvation

Before he can define the term gospel, Scot lays out four important categories for understanding the gospel: 1) The Story of Israel / the Bible; 2) The Story of Jesus; 3) Plan of Salvation; 4) Method of Persuasion. To fully understand the gospel, he argues, we must begin with the Story of Israel, which finds it's natural fulfillment in the Story of Jesus, from which we derive the Plan of Salvation. Then, understanding our own context well enough, we create Methods of Persuasion. This is the proper orientation of a gospel culture.

However, in our salvation culture, we have flipped the order. The first question we ask is: "How can we get people saved?"

Our Method of Persuasion is shaped by a salvation culture and is designed from first to last to get people to make a decision so they can come safely inside the boundary lines of The Decided. (43)

So we begin with the Method of Persuasion (4 Spiritual Laws, Alpha, Evangelism Explosion), incorporate the Plan of Salvation, and take bits from the Story of Jesus--mostly about his atoning death. The Story of Israel gets lopped off completely. In fact, I would be willing to bet that most evangelicals don't think you need the Old Testament to share the gospel. "One reason why so many Christians today don't know the Old Testament is because their 'gospel' doesn't even need it!" (44)

Now for the most important point of the book thus far. The Plan of Salvation is, essentially, this: God created humans to be perfect, but we rebelled against him and brought sin and death into the world. We are separated from him, forever. But because he loves us so much, he sent his Son to die on a cross for our sins, as the ultimate atoning sacrifice. Now we can be saved if we believe in Jesus! This is all true, wonderful, and great in every way. But it is not the gospel.

Here's the point: The Plan of Salvation is not the Gospel, and by mistaking the former for the latter we have created a salvation culture that misses the deep truths of the gospel, emphasizes decision over discipleship, and, as a result, fails to make true disciples of Jesus. Upon closer examination, we see that the situation is dire. We must get back to the biblical gospel. But what is that? And where do we find it?

More to come...

Ember Monday

2011-11-07T10:46:00.000-05:00

Last night at Ember we started our new series on the book of Titus, called Further the Faith, with a message called The 'A' Word. The passage we dealt with was Titus 1:1-9, where Paul outlines the requirements for church leaders. There are 17 of them, and almost of them are qualifications of character, not skill, talent, or competency. We also introduced the Pastoral Care Team to the church, which is comprised of the three men who lead and shepherd Ember Church.

We had a lot of folks join us for worship for the first time. One couple found out about Ember because they saw someone wearing a t-shirt, checked us out on the web, came to the Trunk or Treat last week, then came back to church this week. So for all of you who have an Ember t-shirt, wear it with pride! You never know what God might do. Another couple came because a friend of theirs saw our sign (which only stays up for about 5 hours on Sunday) and told them about us. As someone who doesn't really believe in church marketing, I am blown away! So if you don't have an Ember t-shirt yet, make sure you talk to me and I'll get you one, for free!

We're getting ready to launch small groups soon. The start date hasn't been determined--the holidays certainly complicate matters. But I'm personally excited to see Ember becoming a more complete church. We're slowly, but surely, working our way into doing this, and I love how it's coming together organically.

On a personal note, I'm continuing to learn and grow at a fast pace. God is deconstructing and reconstructing what I know about him. It's a painful process, at times, but worth it. He is faithful, and he comes through for me in ways that I would never expect. I am firmly planted in his story, and I'm learning and growing into the role he has given me. It's such a privilege and honor to be a pastor. Ember is a good church, and there's no where else I would rather be than living in the heart of God's story with these people, in this city.

Book Review: King's Cross

2011-11-04T10:27:00.000-04:00

Tim Keller's book, King's Cross, is the compilation of his sermon series through the Gospel of Mark. The book is divided into two parts, corresponding with the major shift in Mark 9: Part 1 is "The King: The Identity of Jesus", and Part 2 is "The Cross: The Purpose of Jesus". In this work, Keller has truly mastered the art of turning a sermon series into a single book. (I should say that he has given me hope that, one day, I too could write a book from a sermon series. But that's a journey for another day.)

King's Cross "is an extended meditation on the historical Christian premise that Jesus's life, death, and resurrection form the central event of cosmic and human history as well as the central organizing principle of our own lives." (x) His aim, which I believe he accomplishes, is to show that the life of Jesus (and his death and resurrection) explains our lives. This theme appears again and again as, in each chapter, Keller brings the reader around to the love of God we find only in Jesus. If you've read any of his other recent books, you know that this is vintage Keller.

The book is truly an exegetical sermon on the Gospel of Mark. Keller never deviates from the text, but walks slowly through Mark's Gospel with an insightful and engaging style. This is not an academic book, but as we've come to expect from Keller's books, you will be intellectually challenged and emotionally broken. He has a way of speaking to both the heart and mind that is extraordinary, and is one of the marks of a truly great preacher. In fact, young and aspiring preachers would do well to study Keller's style and work, learning from him all that they can. His books have taught me to, above all, remain Christ-centered in my preaching, no matter the text. If all of Scripture points to Jesus, then so must all of our preaching.

King's Cross has also inspired me to preach through the Gospel of Mark from Christmas to Easter, even though there is no birth narrative in his Gospel. Shoot, I may just stand up and read a chapter a week! (Just kidding, that would be plagiarism.)

If you want to understand Mark's Gospel or if you want to get to know Jesus much, much better, you should read King's Cross. I would also highly recommend this book to those who don't know Jesus, but are curious about him. While it's not the shortest book in the world, Keller's style is very accessible to people from all walks of life.

Our Refuge & Strength

2011-11-03T15:41:00.001-04:00

If you started the M'Cheyne reading program on January 1, and then had a baby which set you back about two weeks, today you would have had a scheduled reading that included Psalm 46.

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever present help in times of trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break her day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

YHWH Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see what YHWH has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
He says, "Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

YHWH Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

God is bigger than your problems. God is stronger than your enemy. God is mightier than the nations. God is wiser than the schemers. With him, you have nothing to fear. With him, you need never be afraid because, in him, your fate is secure. Though your world waste away, your God will never fade, tire, or leave. YHWH Almighty is with you. Run to him, for he is the only sure refuge! Hide in him, for he is the only true strength!

God's Will For You

2011-11-02T11:28:00.004-04:00

My devotional reading brought me to 1 Thessalonians 5 today. Here is what struck me:

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Is this even possible? Aren't there times when rejoicing or giving thanks would be inappropriate, like in the wake of a natural disaster? Is it reasonable to command people to be in constant prayer? What would that even look like?

I don't know if any of these are possible, but I think there's a deeper principle at work here, and it's this: Your character can exceed your circumstances. Don't let the circumstances of your life bring you down to the pit, or shut your mouth from prayer, or make you embittered and ungrateful. No matter what comes your way, the way you respond is entirely up to you. Rejoicing, prayer, and thankfulness are always a conscious choice. You don't just fall into those responses by accident; you do them on purpose.

It is God's will for you that your character be determined by the power of Christ in you rather than on your instinctive reactions to the various circumstances of your life. You might say that your natural response to your circumstances is what is true, and to force yourself to respond another way is hypocritical. Not so. If you follow Jesus, what is truest about you is Christ in you. Jesus Christ is what is most true of you. Not your sin. Not your past. Not your temper. Not your attitude. Not your instinctive reactions to your circumstances. Through faith in Christ, you are no longer a "natural" person, but a "becoming-supernatural" person by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The old is gone, crucified with Jesus, and the new is here, resurrected with Jesus. You are new, through faith in Christ.

You have power, in the Spirit, to rise above your "natural" reactions and instincts. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying you can change overnight. But you can learn to walk in the Spirit--and to rejoice always, to pray continually, and to give thanks no matter what--the same way you learned to walk as a toddler. By falling down a lot, and getting back up.

I'm a pastor, and I'm still learning to walk. It's hard. Sometimes I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, which really just means I'm choosing to be a frustrated, mean-spirited, downcast jerk like I am today. I don't always remember these things, but that doesn't make them any less true. My character can exceed my circumstances, but only as I lean into the power of Christ within me through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The same goes for you. And be encouraged, because you'll learn to walk someday.

New Sermon Series: Titus

2011-11-01T10:44:00.000-04:00

This week at Ember we're launching a new sermons series on the book of Titus called Further the Faith. Titus is a very short letter, written by Paul to his friend ~~Richard~~ Titus, who was ministering on the island of Crete. As far as books in the Bible go, this one is about as different from the book of Jeremiah as it gets. While I thoroughly enjoyed our long series through the long and dark book of Jeremiah, I'm looking forward to the new challenge of preaching the short letter to Titus.

Titus had a difficult job in front of him. Paul left Crete after being there for only a short time, so there was much work to be done. His charge to Titus is found in 1:5, "The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town as I directed you." For whatever reason, Paul was not able to see the work on Crete through to the end. In fact, it seems as though the work was just getting started. The Gospel had been preached throughout the island, and some had converted to Christ, but there were not yet leaders in every town. Titus's task is to further the faith by setting things in order in all the churches, and by raising up leaders in each town.

Our task, at Ember, is similar to Titus's task on Crete, albeit on a much smaller scale. We have intentionally been very simple about the way in which we have begun the church. We don't have any extra events (besides the Trunk or Treat). We don't have small groups. We just have our weekly worship service. But, as you know, that is not all that a church is, nor is it enough to sustain the lives of individuals or a community. So we have to "put in order what was left unfinished", and one of the things we're going to do is small groups. Ember was born out of a small group, after all, so it's kind of in our blood. We'll be talking about this more in the coming weeks, with groups starting up soon.

So we approach the book of Titus, expecting to see God move in our midst, furthering our faith to others and deepening it within ourselves. God has something for you here; I am confident of that. Come further your faith at Ember Church.

Ember Monday

2011-10-31T11:03:00.001-04:00

We had our Trunk or Treat yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. Lots of folks from the neighborhood came out, and we gave away a ton of candy. I have to say, my costume was pretty amazing. Yes, Ember, that's your pastor, wearing a giant whoopie cushion. Be proud, friends. Be very proud.

So many people did such great work to pull this event off, and Tim Evans is at the top of that list. What he and Jenny did to their car was amazing: Strobe lights, smoke machine, and a tunnel of darkness. It was incredible!

We had our usual service immediately after the Trunk or Treat, and we finished up our 12 week series on the book of Jeremiah. The passage we looked at was from Jeremiah 44, the final recorded prophecy of his life. Sadly, it was essentially the same message he had been preaching for 40 years. The people refused to listen to him or heed his warnings, even after Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Idols have a stranglehold on our hearts, and most of us don't repent of our idolatry after the first message. The point of the sermon was to say this: If we don't repent of our sin, we're doomed to repeat it.

The band played a song that I hope will become a regular one in our rotation. Kelly sent me a video of the song to share on the blog. (This is not our band.)

Next week we start up a new sermon series on the book of Titus called Further the Faith. I'm really looking forward to getting into a New Testament book, and am excited about what God has to say to us through Titus!

Trunk or Treat

2011-10-29T14:54:00.000-04:00

This Sunday at Ember is our first public event (besides worship services). We're having a Trunk or Treat, which I've never done before. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I'm hoping we get a good response from our neighborhood. We hung over 500 door hangers in the homes around our neighborhood, so hopefully the word will get out a bit.

Hanging door hangers was an interesting experience for me. I felt like I was trespassing at every home I snuck up to and stealthily placed the door hanger over the front door knob. I felt as though I was violating a bit of my idealism, that we shouldn't have to "stoop" to door hangers or other such marketing devices to get the word out about Ember. But in the midst of it, I felt the Lord challenge me with this question: Are you willing to compromise your idealism in order to fulfill my mission? Ouch.

Because maybe it wasn't simply about my idealism; maybe it was about my pride and my fear. Maybe I thought that what we were doing at Ember was so overwhelmingly awesome that the word would just get out and the masses would flock to our church. And maybe I was so afraid of rejection that I didn't want to put myself or Ember on the line by doing any kind of marketing in the first place. Double ouch.

But God's question to me haunts me, and I suspect that it won't be the last time he asks me that particular question. Am I willing to compromise my idealism in order to fulfill God's mission? I am. Especially when my idealism is just a cover for my pride and fear.

Well, with all that introspection aside, we're having a Trunk or Treat Sunday afternoon at 4, right before our worship service. We're giving away free candy, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Also, I have an epic costume, though I haven't yet decided to preach in it. Come Sunday and find out. 4pm, 401 E. Schrock Rd.

New Books

2011-10-28T11:01:00.000-04:00

Make no mistake about it; I am a huge nerd. I got a small book order in the mail yesterday, and I am so excited to dive into these books! Check them out:

The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight is one of the books I've been waiting to get my hands on for a while. Though it did come out this year, I wasn't able to pick up a copy right away. But now that I have it, I'm very much looking forward to reading it. McKnight is, for me, a breath of fresh air. So much of contemporary evangelicalism has been bifurcating between the emergent church (Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Chris Seay, and you could throw Rob Bell in there as well) and the neo-reformed movement (Mark Driscoll, Francis Chan, David Platt, with John Piper playing the role of the Godfather). I don't identify with either of those groups--the former because they seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and the latter because they've made the tub so small the baby doesn't fit in it anymore. While I don't agree with all of McKnight's views either (for example, I'm not a pacifist), I find that he is a reasonable voice of Arminian centrism within American evangelicalism, and perhaps the only one. All of the popular-level, American evangelical pastor-theologians seem to be coming from a Calvinist perspective. I'm beginning to feel like an evangelical without a place in American evangelicalism, and I'm curious to see what will happen to believers who, like me, reject reformed soteriology. Will there be an evangelicalism for us? This is why I'm so excited to read The King Jesus Gospel.

Ember's next preaching series will be through the book of Titus. Because I somehow managed to make it through seminary with barely a commentary to my name (thank you, Gordon-Conwell library!), I try to purchase the best commentary for each book and rely on the work of that scholar. Towner's commentary on the Pastoral Epistles comes highly recommended from several sources, and is a part of an important commentary series, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, which is edited by the brilliant Gordon Fee.

When I get a commentary, I try to find one that's been written recently. This is not because I'm a cultural snob (though I probably am), but because the newer commentaries, at least the good ones, will deal with the most important, relevant, and best material from the older commentaries. Biblical studies is a field that has developed and changed over time, and methods of interpretation have evolved since the Bible was first written. A good commentator will give you the best thoughts of those who have written before him, as well as adding the best of his own research and thinking.

I am a huge, huge fan of N.T. Wright. His books, particularly The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, The Challenge of Jesus, and What Saint Paul Really Said (as well as his more popular level works like Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, and After You Believe) have dramatically changed the way I think about and live out my faith. For so long I had been hoping that he would put out a translation of the Bible, and here it is! I'm so looking forward to adding The Kingdom New Testament to my devotional reading, as well as to my study, particularly for the upcoming Titus series at Ember. I've had a chance to briefly scan through his translation, as well as read the introduction, and I think it's going to be very good. I'm particularly interested in reading his translation of Romans, because he once quipped that if you've only read Romans in the NIV, then you've never really read Romans. I have been reading the new NIV this year in my reading plan, but that's already taken me all the way through the New Testament, so I'm going to substitute The Kingdom New Testament on the second go around.

And then there's this last book, Simply Jesus. It's also by N.T. Wright, and I don't know anything about it. I had no idea he was writing about Jesus again; but I suppose this could also just be an updated version of The Challenge of Jesus. Whatever it is, I'm very excited to dive into it, as I'm sure that anything Wright writes on Jesus won't disappoint.

I don't know what kind of a value you place on reading, but I can honestly tell you that I would not be where I am, who I am, or doing what I'm doing right now if it weren't for the books I have read in the past decade. Reading is my primary form of learning. I take in information, process it internally or here on the blog, and then it slowly integrates its way into my life, forming me and shaping me. I believe this process is taking place under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and it is a part of what he is doing in and through me to conform me into the image of the Son of God. Not only that, but as the pastor of a church, I take it as my responsibility to engage with serious thinking regarding Scripture, Theology, and Doctrine on behalf of the congregation, and then to translate that information in such a way that it works into their hearts as it has worked into mine. That is part of what I try to do in my preaching, and also, in a freer way, here at the blog.

Before I can get to these books, I have to finish King's Cross by Tim Keller, which is also an excellent read. I hope to get back into the habit of doing book reviews here. Lord knows I've got plenty of good material to work with!

Your New Clothes

2011-10-27T10:05:00.002-04:00

A couple of days ago I blogged about Paul's prayer in Colossians 1 that was, for me, quite timely. Yesterday my devotional reading took me to Colossians 2, which is amazing, but about which I didn't have time to blog because I was doing home school with my son and passing out door hangers for our Trunk or Treat this Sunday. (By the way, if you live in central Ohio, you should definitely come to our Trunk or Treat. There will be candy, and the candy will be free. Do you need another reason?)

So today I came to Colossians 3, which is also thoroughly amazing. (You know what, maybe you should go read the whole book of Colossians. It's really great.) Here is a portion of what struck me today:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

What are you wearing today? I'm wearing my favorite Ohio State zip-up; but am I wearing compassion? Are you wearing kindness and humility in such a way that people notice the quality of your character the same way they notice the clothes on your body? When they see you coming, do they see a red shirt and blue jeans, or do they see a person who is gentle and patient?

I'm not trying to guilt you; I'm trying to change your perspective about the person you could possibly be. You really could be a person whose compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (all held together by agape love) is as evident to others as the clothes you wear. You really can possess these qualities of character because this is exactly what God is trying to do in your heart. He is remaking you--reclothing you. Through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and by faith in Jesus Christ, God is slowly but surely remaking your character so that you possess these qualities.

Your responsibility is to put on the clothes. Sure, it may not feel natural at first. Yes, you may feel like a hypocrite in the beginning. But the only way to live into this new character God is forming in you is to actually try it. You've got to give it some effort. (Remember, you're saved by grace, but you're changed by active cooperation with God.) Because compassion et. al. don't come naturally to us, we have to choose to live that way. So put on your new clothes; they look much better on you than what you were wearing before.

Paul's Timely Prayer

2011-10-25T10:48:00.001-04:00

My devotional reading today brought me to Colossians 1, which is so full of amazing stuff that it's hard to pick one thing to share, but I wanted to share this part of Paul's prayer with you.

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

Isn't this one of the most amazing prayers you've ever read? Don't you wish somebody was praying this for you?

The part that stands out to me, at this point in my life anyway, is this: Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience. More than any other season in my life, I need "great endurance" right now, but endurance does not come naturally to me.

In 8th grade, my friend convinced me to join the track team. At the first meeting, we were given a piece of paper with all of the track and field events written on it. We were told to sign up for the events that we were most interested in. I checked the boxes for the shortest races. I wasn't fast, I just knew I didn't want to run for a long time. (The funny thing is, I probably would have done well in the distance races, but I was too big of a wuss to try.)

In order to live the life God has called me to live, I need access to that which I do not internally possess. I need strength from God so that I can have great endurance. I need the power of the Spirit within me so that I can please God. I do not naturally possess these qualities of character, so I need them to be infused into my life from above. I need Paul's prayer prayed over me.

What about you? What part of this prayer resonates with you? Do you need this prayer prayed over you?

This week I'm going to pray this prayer over the people of Ember, and I urge you to pray it over those you love.

Ember Monday

2011-10-24T11:12:00.000-04:00

I really, really love my church. This is probably a good thing, since I'm the pastor. But I just can't emphasize enough how much I enjoy coming to Ember every week. The people are amazing. I encounter God in worship. The sermons are a bit long, but no church is perfect.

The message last night came from Jeremiah 39, which is the story of the fall of Jerusalem. One of the lessons we can learn from Jerusalem's fall is this: Those who embrace the culture of Jerusalem, with Jerusalem will perish. The culture of that city had become one of sin and idolatry. It became normal to worship other gods and oppress the poor, to corrupt justice and break God's sexual commands. Jerusalem's idolatry brought about God's punishment. Our way of life, as Christians, ought not to be defined by the culture in which we live. We have a new culture, a new way of life, that is defined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can listen to the sermon in the sermon player, or you can get it on our podcast, which I'm not sure is up on iTunes yet or not.

The music was, as always, awesome. It was so good to see our most faithful attender Travis Somers playing with the band last night. They had another great set of outstanding songs, including Jesus Paid It All, Jesus Is the Lord, and Our God. It was another night of intimate worship as the band drew us into the presence of God through song. And I've got to give props to Bryce on the soundboard and Erica on the computer; neither of them had ever done what they're doing now before Ember started 11 weeks ago, and they're total pros!

This coming weekend is our first big public event. We're having a Trunk or Treat in the church parking lot before the service. If you've never been to Ember, this is a great week to come because you can get free candy and worship Jesus! What's better than that?

The Glorious Appearance of Bexley

2011-10-17T19:01:00.000-04:00

Last week Breena and I welcomed our fourth child into the world. Bexley came at 5:13pm on October 10th, the first of our four children to come without the aid of an epidural. Bexley was also the biggest of our babies, by almost a full pound. (And we have big babies.)

We had been waiting a long time for her to arrive. Three weeks earlier we were in the hospital, expecting to deliver that night. But we were sent home, hoping that we would be back in just a few hours. Well, a few hours turned into a few days, and then a few days turned into a few weeks. We thought she'd never get here! We were hoping that everything would happen naturally, but we wound up scheduling her delivery on Monday the 10th.

We got to the hospital at 10am and waited...and waited...and waited. Our induction had been pushed back because of an emergency. I don't know what it was or who was involved, but there was a couple that came in right after us, and the mother-to-be looked very distressed, and not pregnant enough to deliver. I prayed that everyone would be okay, and didn't mind waiting anymore. We were about to deliver our fourth healthy baby in four tries. We are so blessed.

Finally, we were escorted back to our room and began preparations for Bexley. Breena decided to forgo the petosin, hoping instead that her body would go into labor naturally, which it did. She did a great job of breathing through all of her contractions, and she never even thought about getting any drugs to take the edge off, much less getting that epidural. I could see on the digital chart that every other woman on the floor giving birth that day had gotten an epidural. My wife is tough.

The labor grew very intense for about 15 minutes, but then there was Bexley! The doctor's first words were, "Whoa! I think you've got your ten pound baby!" The nurses could barely lift her to clean her up and give her to Breena. They weren't used to such big babies, I guess.

When I saw her, I cried. I cried for joy at the birth of another healthy child. I cried for pide in my wife going totally natural, like she had hoped to do. I cried because this is the last time we'll do this, and Bexley is the last Holt baby we'll add to our family.

As you can see, she's beautiful. And she's very greatly loved. I love you, Bexley Holt.

Ember Monday

2011-10-03T12:12:00.001-04:00

Last night was the first time I wasn't at an Ember service. Well, I suppose I was, technically. Last night I served as a "children's pastor" in the children's ministry. I missed the service, but got to spend time with a bunch of really great, energetic young kiddos--three of which were mine.

Children's ministry gets a bad rep. Everyone who hasn't done it is terrified of it, and thinks it sounds like a nightmare. This, of course, is ridiculous; if you haven't done it, how do you know what it's like? You don't. And it's awesome! If you let yourself be used of God, you will be built up just as much from shepherding kids as you are when you're in the service with the other adults. If you engage with kids you will be amazed by them. I may be the senior pastor of Ember Church, but I'm proud to say that I'm also a children's pastor to our little ones.

Last night was also the first time I've opened the pulpit to someone else from within our congregation. Travis Ell spoke from Jeremiah 20, and if you weren't there, you can listen to it the same way I will--through the sermon player right here on the blog. Travis is a young man that I've been building into for the past three years, and he is an outstanding man of God. I'm proud to call him a friend.

Book Review: The Gospel According to Jesus

2011-09-30T08:41:00.000-04:00

I was looking forward to reading Chris Seay's book, The Gospel According to Jesus, when I bought it at a book store that was going out of business. In fact, I almost bought his book The Gospel According to LOST, but I decided against it. I think I'd like to go back and read that one now, too.

The thesis of The Gospel According to Jesus is that Christians have long misunderstood the concept of righteousness, and therefore misunderstood their faith. We have mistakenly categorized righteousness in terms of morality and good behavior, he says, and have grossly mistaken the gospel of Jesus Christ for a set of rules and regulations for life. The impetus for the book seems to have come from a Barna survey in which a majority of Christians (including active churchgoers) confessed to being unfamiliar with the term and concept of righteousness. Of those who had heard of the term, most associated it with holiness or faithfulness.

This deeply troubled Seay, because he believes that a proper understanding of righteousness is essential to Christian faith and practice. Here is his definition of righteousness:

...We also know what [God's] righteousness is not: a morality that can be attained by the works of man. The best simplet translation of the word righteousness is "restorative justice." God is stepping into our brokenness and making things right, taking fragments shattered by sin and restoring them to fullness. ...Seeking his righteousness is about being an active agent for his restorative justice in all creation.

By this definition, the righteousness of God is the activity of the restoration of creation through the outworking of God's justice. Jesus said that we are to "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness", that is, God's restorative justice. Our task, as disciples of Jesus, is to see that God's restorative justice is enacted on the earth.

That's all well and good, but is that really what righteousness means? He says it, and he is the president of Ecclesia Bible Society, but is he right? Because he never really proves it. And there are plenty of instances in Scripture where we find the word righteousness, but it certainly doesn't mean "restorative justice."

For example, Genesis 15:6. Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as ~~righteousness~~ restorative justice.

Or Deuteronomy 6:25. And if we are careful to obey all this law before YHWH our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our ~~righteousness~~ restorative justice.

In fact, perhaps the most damning case comes from Matthew 6, the same chapter in which we find the command to "seek first his...righteousness." Verse 1 reads: Be careful not to practice your ~~righteousness~~ restorative justice in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Chris Seay was very upset because he believed the church was getting righteousness wrong. But it seems that Chris Seay has also gotten righteousness wrong, or at least defined it too narrowly. I can't attempt to provide a definition here, but I believe that restorative justice is part of what righteousness means, but by no means all of it.

With that, somewhat major, caveat, I thought this book was excellent, and well worth a read by anybody trying to figure out how to follow Jesus well with others. This is really a book about being disciples of Christ together, and the author even models that by bringing in other voices for conversation at the end of each chapter. The most beneficial chapter is actually the last one: The Ten Commandments of a Shalom Life. In that chapter, Chris draws on his experience as a pastor and church planter to give a good and biblical perspective on how to live well the commands of Jesus together.

All in all, this was an interesting and thought-provoking book that will resonate with younger Christians who feel caught between the pull of conservative fundamentalism and liberal emergent-ism.

Playoff Baseball

2011-09-29T12:05:00.001-04:00

For the first time in 5 years, the Tigers are in the playoffs. Here's why I like their chances of reaching the World Series.

1. Justin Verlander. The dude will win the Cy Young in the American League, and should win the MVP, too. He was the best pitcher in baseball all year long. He was consistently great, and is putting it all together in a serious way right now. He could pitch 2 games in a 5 game series, or 3 in a 7 game series. You've got to like those odds.

2. Miguel Cabrera. He won the batting title in the American League this year, and also had the highest batting average in all of baseball. Like Verlander, he is consistently great. He's posted nearly identical numbers for the past 5 years. He never seems to slump. And he's on fire right now, hitting 4 home runs in the last week of the season.

3. September. The Tigers went 20-6 over the season's final month. Now that's storming into the playoffs!

4. 16-5. That's the Tigers' record against the other 3 American League playoff teams (NYY, TB, TEX). Sure, that was the regular season. But success breeds confidence, and the Tigers' have dominated the other three playoff teams.

5. Doug Fister. As good as Verlander was this year, Doug Fister was even better down the stretch. He went 9-1 with the Tigers, and had an ERA under 1 over his past 7 starts! That's a rock solid 1-2 punch at the top of your starting rotation!

6. The Lineup. Alex Avila. Jhonny Peralta. Delmon Young. Victor Martinez. Austin Jackson. Even with the loss of Brennan Boesch, this lineup has been mashing. They're balanced. They're confident. And they're ready for the big stage.

7. Opportunity. While the other teams have been fighting their way into the postseason, the Tigers' punched their way into the playoffs by running off 12 straight wins in early September, 9 of which were against the teams directly behind them in the standings. They're the one team that grabbed their playoff opportunity by the throat and pinned it to the ground. They're playing their best baseball right now.

I hope this is our year. The last time the Tigers won the World Series, I was 5 years old. My oldest son is 5 this year. Coincidence? Yes. But there's a lot to like about this team. Let's go Tigers!

My Ordination Service

2011-09-26T10:13:00.002-04:00

Last night, at Ember, I was ordained as an elder through the Alliance for Renewal Churches. It was a humbling and special time for me and my family, and also for our congregation. So many people came from all over the state to be there to love on us and support us. Pastor Doug Rumschlag, from Grace Church in Toledo (my home church), delivered a challenging message on the responsibilities of an elder-pastor. Rick Widener and Ray Nethery, from the ARC, performed the ordination ceremony. I love being a part of the ARC, where I get such wonderful support and encouragement.

The music team was especially brilliant last night. If you've never been to Ember, you need to come out and experience it sometime. I know I'm the pastor, so I'm supposed to say that, but if I didn't mean it, I wouldn't say it. I was talking to my wife after the service about how much I love this church, and the way God has brought our team together, and what he is teaching us. It's a high honor to be the pastor of Ember Church. I get to do this! God has been so good to me, my family, and our church. Ordination is just the beginning, and I'm earnestly looking forward to all that God will do in and through our congregation.

Sermon Recap: Scarecrow

2011-09-13T16:36:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday was the fifth sermon in our series on Jeremiah called Run with Horses. The sermon was called Scarecrow, and the text was Jeremiah 10:1-16. In this passage, God compares the nature of idols to the nature of himself as Creator. He gives us a look behind the curtain of idolatry, showing the process of the creation of an idol, then comparing that to his act as Creator of the world.

The main point of the sermon was this: Idols are made; YHWH makes. Idols are fakes. They are things we create, and then treat as though they were creators. We make an idol out of money because we think it can create security. We idolize power because we think it can create success. We make a god out of sex because we think it can create happiness. But there is only one true creator: YHWH God.

IDOLS ARE MADE; YHWH MAKES

But the reality is that the only thing our idols can create for us are problems. I quoted The Notorious B.I.G. on this point (which people seemed to find endlessly amusing): "I don't know what they want from me. Seems like the more money we come across, the more problems we see." Sure it's funny to hear a 32-year-old white preacher quote Biggy, but he's right. The only thing our idols create for us is problems.

YHWH is the only real Creator, and the only one who can create solutions to the problems caused by our idolatry. He is the only one who can create good out of evil and turn darkness into light. That's exactly what we see in the cross, where the height of human evil was turned into the greatest good for mankind. That's the power of God.

The sermon audio is available in the sermon player in the right column on the blog.

Ember Monday

2011-09-12T08:16:00.002-04:00

Last night was our fifth service, and though I'm not sure how you could make a judgment like this, I would say it was definitely our best. When I think of what defines a "good" church service, the first thing that comes to my mind is the presence of God. We gather together as a community with the purpose of hearing from God and responding to him in worship, and we hope that he will make himself known to us by his presence. And last night he did just that.

I, and others that I talked with, could sense his presence with us. Our worship time was very rich--that's the only word I can use to describe it. I came away extremely encouraged and edified. The first song after the sermon was Revelation Song, led by my beautiful wife Breena and Kelly Heasley. (My wife did a fantastic job, by the way, and it was only the second time she has ever sung in front of a group!) That is such a Spirit-filled song, and it really set a tone for our time of responsive worship.

Because it was the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we wanted to do something to commemorate the event. But yesterday morning I still had no idea what we were going to do, and then my wife came across this amazing video from the I Am Second series. So we started the service with it, and it was a pretty heavy way to begin a worship service. If you haven't seen it yet, and you've got ten minutes, you should definitely watch it: Sujo John - I Am Second

The sermon was the fifth in our Jeremiah series, and I'll post a recap of it tomorrow. I'm becoming more comfortable preaching again. Even though I rewrote the last half of my sermon on Friday night, I felt far less tied to my notes than usual. I've also moved from the floor to the stage, which, I think, has subconsciously made me take the sermon more seriously. Not that I didn't take it seriously before, but being on the stage makes me feel like I'm preaching, whereas being on the floor makes me feel like I'm sharing.

I can't forget to thank the band for rolling with me last night when I asked them to do one more song at the end. Charlie, Garth, Kelly, and Breena...thank you! You guys are awesome! And if you weren't there, you missed Charlie's beatboxing--I mean, "vocal percussion"--on one of the songs. You should definitely come to Ember, because where else are you going to hear a banjo, a pump organ, a fiddle, and beatboxing in the same worship set?!

The Question of Pain & Suffering

2011-09-07T07:30:00.000-04:00

Have you ever heard someone ask that old skeptical question, “If God exists, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?” That’s a good question. It’s a question that deserves a thoughtful, reasonable answer.

But there’s an assumption that lies underneath that question, and it is this: “If God exists, and he is good, then he should only allow pleasure into this world.” But who, by pursuing pleasure, has ever truly found happiness, completeness, and fulfillment? Isn’t our world littered with stories of people who looked like they had it all—money, sex, power—but who were utterly void of character and contentment? Haven’t we seen, through the AIDS epidemic and the horrors of abortion, that the unbridled pursuit of pleasure has brought as much, if not more, pain and suffering than any war in human history?

Not only has the pursuit of pleasure caused untold amounts of pain, but pain and suffering are often far more redemptive than pleasure. Most of us grow and develop character through the most painful, difficult periods of our lives; but few of us grow when things are easy.

Human beings were created by God to exercise dominion over the world. We were created to be Stewards of the earth and Servants of the King, God himself. I believe that God’s intention was to, in the course of due time, invite human beings to reign over Creation with him, seated with him on his throne, so to speak. (By the way, that’s exactly what Jesus promises to those who are faithful in the book of Revelation.)

But our first parents didn’t see that; they got greedy, and so they rebelled against God. The stewards of the earth rebelled against the King of Creation. In our rebellion, we have frustrated our world, living in conflict with it rather than ruling over it with wisdom and grace. We have very little say over the manner in which we live and die on this planet. It's not so much that we live in a fallen world, it's that we are fallen people bringing the world down with us.

Listen to how Paul puts it in Romans 8.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

What the Christian faith tells us, and what you won’t hear anywhere else in the world, is that God has intimate, first-hand knowledge of human suffering. Jesus, the Son of God, suffered an excruciatingly painful death on the cross. Not only that, but he endured the emotional pain of abandonment, rejection, and betrayal, all in his hour of greatest need. Even more than many of us, God knows what pain and suffering feel like.

But the pain and suffering of Jesus turned into the redemption of all humanity. Through the crucifixion, God forgave us of all our sins. And after the crucifixion came the resurrection, where Jesus’ suffering became his glory. We, too, through faith in Christ, await the day of our own resurrection, when our suffering becomes our glory, and when we begin to do what we were made to do, rule over the earth right alongside the Son of God.

Sermon Recap: Shiloh

2011-09-06T04:30:00.000-04:00

Our series through Jeremiah, called Run with Horses, continued this past Sunday night with a sermon called Shiloh. The text for the passage was Jeremiah 7:1-15. In this passage, God threatens to destroy the temple in Jerusalem just like he had destroyed the tabernacle in Shiloh over 400 years earlier.

The point of the sermon was that, sometimes, exile is rescue. The lesson of Shiloh is that God will destroy what we consider sacred in order to save what he considers sacred--us. You've heard it said, "Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window." Not always. Sometimes God closes the door, boards up the windows, and then sets fire to the house with you inside. Sometimes, Jerusalem has to become Shiloh in order for us to learn to abandon our idols.

EXILE IS RESCUE

We become what we worship, and God so passionately loves us that he will do whatever he needs to do to save us from our idols. When we worship the true God, we become more and more like his son Jesus. But when we worship false gods, we are transformed into false images, into a nothingness and a broken cistern. God wants to rescue you from your worship of empty, false, and lifeless gods.

Because we become what we worship, being rescued from our idols is painful. Idolatry puts us in the position of pain, either at the hands of the false gods, who only seek to destroy us, or at the hands of the one true God, who only seeks to save and restore us. Exile will always feel like exile, but in the hands of God, exile is rescue.

Jesus quoted this passage when he judged the temple by driving out the moneychangers. He went so far as to say, "Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days." Essentially, he was saying, "I am the temple of God. You can kill me, but I will rise again three days later." Jesus became Shiloh for us. Jesus, the new and living temple, became Shiloh when he was crucified, not for his sin or idolatry, but for ours. His exile is our rescue.

Ember Monday

2011-09-05T04:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was our first ever Family Worship Weekend at Ember Church. Our kids are very important to us...and we have a lot of them, so I was very interested to see how this would go. I can tell you, as both the pastor and a dad to three of those kids, I thought it was a smashing success!

We wanted to do some special things for the kids, to make them feel like a part of the service. The incomparable Charlie Vidourek led them in a rousing rendition of Father Abraham. It. Was. Awesome!

Father Abraham from Ember Church on Vimeo.

After Father Abraham I gave my first ever children's sermon. It was not quite as exciting as the song with hand motions, but we still had a lot of great interaction with the kids. They were super cute, and I was very impressed by how much they knew! It was so fantastic; I can't wait to do it again!

When I finished the sermon, we invited the band to come back up and sing Jesus Loves Me. Our hope was that that song would calm the kids down a bit...and it did! What a sweet time of all-family worship we had at Ember. This may not be something we do every week, but it will certainly be an integral part of our life as a church.

Family Worship Weekends

2011-08-31T13:43:00.000-04:00

There's a beautiful story in the gospels of parents bringing their children to Jesus so that he would bless them. The disciples shooed the children away, thinking that God's work through Jesus was too important to be wasted on these little ones. But Jesus rebuked them, and even used the faith of the little children as an example for his disciples.

Too often, we in the church have an attitude toward the children that resembles that of the first disciples. We want someone else to watch our kids so that we can go into the sanctuary, where God is really at work. We think of children's ministry as free babysitting. But that's not Jesus' heart for kids, and it shouldn't be the heart of the bride of Christ, either.

At Ember, the people who serve in Children's Ministry aren't volunteers. They're pastors. That's what we call them, because we believe that it is their God-ordained responsibility to shepherd the children for the hour+ that they're in their care. It's far more than just volunteering your time, it's loving kids in the name of Jesus. It's how we embody Jesus' call, "Let the children come to me", 70 generations later.

We also think it's crucial that kids see how their parents receive the word of God and respond to him, so on a regular basis we have Family Worship Weekends. (I say this like we've been doing church for a long time.) Family Worship Weekends are where we close down all Children's Ministry and bring all of our kids into the sanctuary to worship with the adults. The goal is for families to learn how to worship together.

It may take us some time to figure out how to do this well, but we believe this is an investment in the long-term health of the kingdom of God, as well as in the spiritual development of the youngest generation of Christians. This Sunday I'll be preaching a Children's Sermon, in addition to our regularly scheduled sermon from the book of Jeremiah. Come join us...and bring your kids! Sundays @ 5pm, 401 E. Schrock Rd.

Sermon Recap: Return! Return! Return!

2011-08-30T07:23:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday night at Ember I preached a sermon called Return! Return! Return! It was the third message in our series on Jeremiah, called Run with Horses. The text was Jeremiah 3:6-4:4. I originally preached the sermon in three parts, broken up by a song of reflection and communion, but you can listen to it all the way through in the sermon player on this blog.

The point of the message was that God is calling us to return to him, but we can't come back to him on our own terms. We must come back his way, and his way involves three commands to return.

RETURN IN REPENTANCE

First of all, we must return in repentance. We can't pretend like nothing has happened. We don't get to ignore the fact that our sin and idolatry has severed our relationship with God. We have to admit that we are wrong, that we have sinned, and we must be truly sorry for it. We can't get back to God unless we first repent of our sin.

RETURN THROUGH GRACE

Secondly, we must return through grace. We come back to God by walking through his grace. We don't make it back to God by our own moral goodness. We can't restore our relationship with him through our own guilt, promises to reform our ways, or our good deeds. A restored relationship with God only happens because of God's grace, manifested by faith in his Son Jesus Christ.

RETURN TO GOD

Finally, we must return to God. The goal of our return is God himself, and a renewed and restored relationship with him. He's not taking us back to some over-idealized version of the past. It's not that we're going back to a time before we had all the baggage we do now, it's that we're finally moving forward with all of our baggage in tow, but now God himself is with us to carry it, redeem it, and use it for good.

This is how we return to God. And he is always ready and excited for us to return. As he says at the end of this passage, "If you will return, then return to me."

Ember Monday

2011-08-29T12:46:00.000-04:00

Our third service is in the books! It was a really sweet time of worship and communion. The band played one of my personal favorites: But For You Who Fear My Name by The Welcome Wagon. It's probably one of those songs that you have to get used to before it can become a worshipful encounter, but it's worth it! Garth was rocking it out on four different instruments: the banjo, acoustic guitar, piano, and pump organ! All at the same time! ...Okay, maybe not at the same time, but he's still awesome!

The sermon was on Jeremiah 3, and I broke it up into three parts. Each part went with one of three "Return" statements from the passage. We celebrated communion during the sermon, which was the first time we had done that as a church.

All in all it was another great time of worship. This coming weekend is our first Family Worship Weekend, where we have all the kids with us in the sanctuary for the service. I get to write my first ever children's sermon! I'm so excited...and I have no idea what I'm going to do for it!

God has been so good to us. We're praying for his continued faithfulness on this faith venture. If you want to hop on board with us, come out and worship with us this Sunday. God is on the move, and we're doing our best to keep up with him!

Why Justin Verlander Should Win the AL MVP

2011-08-24T16:35:00.000-04:00

I know the baseball season isn't over yet, but that hasn't stopped anyone from arguing about who should win the American League MVP award. Clearly, at this point in the season, Justin Verlander is the best pitcher in baseball. This is where JV ranks in the crucial pitching categories (via ESPN.com):

• 1st in AL in W (19)
• 1st in AL in IP (209.2)
• 1st in AL in SO (212)
• 2nd in AL in ERA (2.28)
• 1st in AL in WHIP (0.88)
• 1st in AL in W% (.792)
• 2nd in AL in CG (4)

That's Cy Young material, no doubt about it. But what about MVP material? That's the hot debate at the moment. Should a pitcher win the MVP award? Starters only pitch in about 35 out of 162 games, so why should they be taken seriously as MVP candidates?

I think, at this point, Justin Verlander should be given strong consideration for AL MVP. Not only is he more valuable to the Tigers than any other player is to their team, but he has also dominated the other MVP candidates this year. Take a look at how he's performed against the leading AL MVP candidates in 2011:

Adrian Gonzales (BOS) 0-6, BB, GIDP, 2 KO
Michael Young (TEX) 2-4, 2B
Jose Bautista (TOR) Hasn't Faced
Jacoby Ellsbury (BOS) 1-7, BB, KO
Curtis Granderson (NYY) 0-4, BB, 2 KO
Dustin Pedroia (BOS) 0-7, KO

Total 3-28, 2B, 3 BB, 6 KO

The leading MVP candidates in the American League are hitting a combined .107 against Justin Verlander with six strikeouts. Their on-base percantage is a combined .194, and their combined slugging percentage is .142. Add those two last numbers up and you get a combined OPS of .336.

Justin Verlander has dominated--and that's an understatement--the best hitters in the league. In 28 head-to-head matchups with the leading MVP candidates in the AL, Justin Verlander has blown them away. If you're looking for a reason to vote Justin Verlander the American League MVP of 2011, look no further than his stats against the other candidates for the same award. Give that man the trophy!

Sermon Recap: Broken Cisterns

2011-08-23T16:28:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday at Ember we continued our sermon series through Jeremiah with a sermon called Broken Cisterns. The text we looked at was Jeremiah 2:1-3:5. The sermon audio has been posted to the sermon player on this blog, which is where you'll be able to find all of our sermons until we get our podcast up and running.

The point of the message was this: Where you go when you're in trouble (or distress, or depressed, etc.) is the clearest indication of who you're trusting for salvation. The god of your heart is to whom you cry out in distress, "Save me!" The trials of our lives reveal the idols of our hearts.

TROUBLE REVEALS TRUST

Our idols are the things that we cherish and desire more than God. Tim Keller absolutely nailed it when he said:

[An idol] is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.…An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.’…If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.

When trouble comes, we react to our circumstances based on what is in our hearts. If our hearts love money, sex, power, or any other false god, more than God himself, then that's where we'll look for rescue when we are in distress. Trouble reveals trust.

The only hope we have is that Jesus Christ would transform the desires of our hearts through the power of the gospel. All of our idols are broken cisterns--there is no life in them. But we have access to God, the spring of living water, through faith in his son Jesus Christ. And it is through faith in Jesus that we learn to desire the ever-present spring more than the empty and broken cisterns.

Ember Monday

2011-08-22T11:26:00.000-04:00

Last night was our second service at Ember. It was a really good time of worship, and the personal highlight for me was when the band played All the Poor & Powerless by All Sons & Daughters. It was the last song of a four song set, and when it was over, my heart was screaming for more worship! We were also really blessed to hear Charlie play the trumpet-like-it's-hot, and I'm pretty sure I heard him and Garth singing really loud at the end. Maybe next time we should get those guys some mics!

I preached a sermon called Broken Cisterns from Jeremiah 2. I hope to post the audio later today, but I'm catching up on some long-neglected yard work. Some things just don't get done when you're planting a church in your "spare" time!

I'm really enjoying this time in our church's young life. There are a lot of challenges that go along with church planting, and I'm trying to see those challenges as opportunities to see God come through and for the gospel to happen. There are also a lot of joys, like worshipping together, learning, growing...even seeing that Ember sign out on the street! I've waited a long time for this church to start, and I'm extremely grateful to God for all that he is doing.

What God Hates

2011-08-21T08:13:00.000-04:00

You've probably heard this before, but it's something we all need to hear again and again: God loves you. He does. He gave up everything so that you could be reconciled with him. He gave his son Jesus, who willingly became just like us, to die as the ultimate sacrifice for everything that keeps us far from God--our sin, our idolatry, our pride. When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the spiritual penalty that we owed, so that, by aligning ourselves with Jesus through faith, we can be reconciled with God in this life, and enjoy eternity with him in the life to come.

Maybe you grew up thinking God hates you, or that he's angry with you, or that he's riding on some cloud with a lightning bolt in hand just waiting for you to screw up. But God doesn't hate you, he hates the idols that steal your heart away from him. He hates the sin that so strongly tempts you, and which ultimately destroys your soul. He hates the lies of the devil that deceive you. As much as God loves you, that's how much he hates the idols of your heart.

Tonight at Ember we're going to start talking about idols. This isn't going to be fun, but it will be freeing. I believe that God is ready to wage war against the idols of your heart, and his intention is to rescue you from their cunning deception. Prepare yourself: This could hurt. Tonight, 5pm. 401 E. Schrock Rd.

What's Happening at Ember this Sunday

2011-08-19T10:19:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday night we launched Ember Church, and 70 adults joined us for worship, along with 14 kids. It was truly a special time of hearing from God and responding to him in worship. Our launch team has been so encouraged by what God did that first weekend, and we're looking forward to what he's going to do this weekend, and on into the future.

This Sunday night we're going to be talking about the second chapter of Jeremiah, where God rails against the idolatry of his people. I've become convinced that idolatry is the core problem of humanity, and the reason that we commit the sins and evil that we do. Idolatry isn't limited to the physical act of bowing down to idols, but rather it includes the sinful desiring of that which is not God--placing God-substitutes on the throne of our hearts. And as we'll talk about Sunday night, the idolatrous desires of humanity have not changed one bit in the past 4,000 years.

You and I are idolaters. We deeply desire things that are not God. We kick Jesus off the throne of our hearts and invite God-substitutes, false gods, to take his place. As David Powlison has said, "The core insanity of the human heart is that we violate the first great commandment. We will love anything, except God, unless our madness is checked by grace.”

I believe that what is ultimately holding you back from living for God is not weakness, but idolatry. What keeps you stuck in sinful patterns of behavior is not some kind of mental or emotional weakness, but the idolatrous desires of your heart.

The Jeremiah series, which we've called Run with Horses, is going to be all about idolatry. Running with horses means living unencumbered by the weight of idols. If you want to live for God well, and be the man or woman he is re-creating you to be, then you must give up your idols. This Sunday night at Ember we're going to talk about how to do that. Come join us, and begin the process of ridding yourself of those heavy and worthless idols that are keeping you from living for God. Sunday. 5pm. 401 E. Schrock Rd.

Sermon Recap: The Divine Interruption

2011-08-16T07:52:00.000-04:00

So maybe you've heard that we had our first Ember Church service this past Sunday. The sermon was on Jeremiah 1, which is the calling of Jeremiah to be a "prophet to the nations". (You can listen to the sermon in the Ember Church Sermon Player, located conveniently to the right of this post.) Jeremiah was terrified of being a prophet because of the horrible fate that most prophets suffered at the hands of the rulers and the people. But God reassured him: "Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and I will rescue you."

The point of the message was to say simply this: God is with those he calls. Whatever task to which God has called you, he will be with you through it. I find this reality playing out in several ways in my life right now.

GOD IS WITH THOSE HE CALLS

First of all, I'm a husband and a father. This is the primary task to which God has called me. Breena's husband. Father of Cyrus, Eisley, Ezekiel, and Bexley (coming soon). As any husband and father can attest, this isn't always easy. Communication breaks down between Breena and me. The kids hurt each other or disobey us, or refuse to eat their dinner, or constantly ask "why? why? why?", or...this list goes on forever. All that to say, in order to be a godly husband and father (what God has called me to be), I desperately need God's presence and strength to be with me and to rescue me in difficult times. And he is there, living within me in the person of the Holy Spirit, waiting to fill me with the patience, courage, and wisdom I need.

Secondly, I'm the pastor of a new church, called by God to lead a congregation of people in following Jesus. I'm new to this calling, so I don't know exactly what I'm doing yet. But I can already see how much I'm going to need God's presence and strength to lead well, to preach well, and to pastor well.

If God isn't with me, I'm sunk. This life I'm trying to live, the person I'm trying to be and become, all falls apart without God's presence and strength. Like I said in the sermon, if you're succeeding in life based on your own skills and abilities, then you're not living God's life for you, you're not dreaming his dream for you, and you're not answering his call. To live the life God has called you to, you need him to be with you. And he is. God is with those he calls.

Ember Reflections

2011-08-15T12:14:00.000-04:00

Last night we held the first ever Ember Church service, and that was the fastest hour and fifteen minutes of my life! God really showed up, spoke to us, and moved our hearts. Bryce, who was running the sound board in the back, said at one point in the service, "Things were just going along normal, then all of a sudden, BAM! The Holy Spirit was just everywhere!"

I was sitting in the front row so I didn't really have a good vantage point on what God was doing in the hearts of those behind me, but from what I've heard, he was powerfully ministering to many folks last night. My facebook feed was blowing up with Ember excitement from a lot of folks who were there, so I know God was doing some cool stuff.

The most powerful moment for me was Breena's video and her song. If you haven't seen the video yet, you can watch it below. After we showed the video, she sang Your Great Name by Natalie Grant. That was the first time she ever sang in front of a group, and to do it after that video...I'm so proud of my wife!

Breena's Story from Ember Church on Vimeo.

I couldn't even look at her while she was singing because I didn't want her to cry. ...Okay, fine, me. I didn't want to cry, so I didn't look at her. There were several moments during the service where I thought I was going to start with the waterworks, but I somehow managed to keep my composure.

So many people put in such excellent service. We have an amazing team of talented servants who are passionate about Jesus and this church. Someone came up to me after the service and said, "I can't believe this was your first service. It seems like you guys have been doing this for a long time." That's a testament to the hard work and talent of our team if I've ever heard one!

If you want to listen to the sermon, you can find it in the sermon player to the right of this post. It was the first in our series on Jeremiah, and as God assured Jeremiah, he assured us: I am with you. That's what I'm really taking away from last night: God is with us.

Today Is the Day

2011-08-14T09:22:00.000-04:00

Today marks the end of a long journey, and the beginning of a new one that will, God willing, last for the rest of my life. Today is the first service of Ember Church, and I couldn't be more excited. I have absolutely no idea how it's going to go, what God is going to do, or who will even show up. Maybe all that mystery adds to the excitement.

I've been praying that God would move powerfully, not just tonight, but through our church whenever we gather together to worship Jesus. I believe that, of all the things we do on earth, worshipping Jesus as a community is the least normal, the least mundane, the least trivial. I believe when we gather to hear God's word and respond to him in worship we should expect great things from God. He wants to speak to us. He wants to meet us in our worship. He wants to show up powerfully. This is what I'm praying for today.

5pm | 401 E. Schrock Rd.

Free Dinner After the Service

Scars that Prove

2011-08-10T00:32:00.001-04:00

Somewhere along the way we got this idea that God is really interested in giving us a good, easy life. That he wants us to be happy. That he wants us to deal with the least amount of pain possible. That suffering has no part in his will for our lives.

Maybe those things are true, but the reality of the world that I live in, and the reality of the person that I am, is that there are parts of my deep heart that are violently opposed to God. There are yet-unredeemed parts of my being that rage against God when things don't go the way I expect they should go, or when I don't get what I want, or when I perceive that God has not delivered on a promise that I tried to manipulate him into making to me. Sin is simply a part of who I am, and it will take God at least the rest of my natural life to transform me into the image of his Son.

Transformation is painful. It's one thing to give up some sin that you don't really care about, it's another thing altogether to repent of the ways in which your very personality, and way of thinking, has been corrupted by the sins you commit and the sins committed against you. That's the transformation that leaves a mark on your character.

God is good. And I've got the scars to prove it.

This is a sort of paraphrase of the things that Paul wrote about his own life with God to the many churches that received letters from him. God hit Paul where it hurt him most time and again. He even once said to a man about Paul, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." He's done that with many of the great saints of church history.

God wounds us because only by being wounded can we move through healing toward godliness.

Suffering is the definitive mark of a disciple of Jesus. After all, we follow the one who was crucified on our behalf. And like what Jesus suffered on the cross, the suffering we endure will one day be redeemed by our Heavenly Father.

I believe that God is currently trying to root out all the sinful desires, all the idolatry, and all the wickedness from your heart. That's what he's doing to me. And it hurts. But he's doing it in order to make us like his Son. He's doing it because he's good; I've got the scars to prove it. And if you stick with God long enough, if you stick with him through the crap of your life and engage with what he's doing in the midst of it, you too will be marked with the scars that prove the goodness of God.

Five Days to Launch

2011-08-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

We're just five days away from launching Ember Church, and I couldn't possibly be more excited! God has been gracious enough to steal all my anxiety away, and now I just want to gather together with others to hear from him and worship him. After all this planning, I want to finally see what Ember will actually look like! And the glimpses I've had along the way make me pretty freaking excited to do this for the rest of my life.

I'm believing God for big things. I have an expectant faith that he wants to and will move in powerful ways in central Ohio, and that one of the many instruments he will use to accomplish his amazing purposes is Ember. I can't wait to see the gospel take over central Ohio, to bring wayward sons and daughters home, to set people free from bondage, to rescue the unborn from death, to revive your heart and pull you out of your boredom, to reconcile people back to each other and to God, and to see sinners find forgiveness and extend it to others.

I believe that God has a good deal more in store for you than you could possibly imagine. I believe the truth and new reality that he is speaking over you is so audacious and ostentatious that it would make your ego blush. I believe that God is unashamedly conforming you into the image of his son. Yes, God wants to make you like Jesus. And I believe the only way for you to fully receive the benefits of God's will for your life is to engage Jesus with all of your heart, to embrace his character and his authority--to receive his word over you and respond to him worshipfully.

This is why we have church worship services. We gather together to worship the one who is more powerful than death, not because we have to, but because this is the only time we get, and the only place in the world where we can be together, as the body of Christ on earth, to hear a word from him whose words are life, and to be filled by his Spirit within and among us as we respond with hearts full of gratitude and love. I can't wait to do this with a church called Ember. Come and join us this Sunday. 5pm. 401 E. Schrock Rd.

The Ministry of Subversion

2011-08-08T10:53:00.000-04:00

In case I haven't blogged about this enough, this coming Sunday is the first worship service of Ember Church! God has brought us through a lot in the past few months, and we've seen both his tenderness and his strength. I could not be more excited to go to church this Sunday evening!

Our first sermon series will be through the book of Jeremiah, which is actually the longest book (highest word count) in the whole Bible. Obviously, we won't be hitting everything, so I'm going to be doing a little sermon supplementation on the blog from time to time. Today I want to write about some of the things we won't have time to talk about this coming Sunday.

Jeremiah the Subverter

Jeremiah grew up under the reign of King Josiah, who was, quite possibly, Judah's most righteous king. He put a lot of religious reforms into effect, and brought the people back to worshipping the one true God. He outlawed idolatry and destroyed the shrines of the various false gods that had been leading the people astray for almost a century.

But Josiah's grandfather Manassah had pretty much sealed the fate of the country when he encouraged and participated in child sacrifice. There's just no coming back from that. So even though Josiah was leading a revival, God called Jeremiah to declare a message of judgment and condemnation against the nation. His prophetic ministry subverted the reforms of the king. God called Jeremiah to say, "Time's up!" The reforms of Josiah were not enough to save the nation. Even though he was, in many ways, the ideal king, Josiah was unable to stem the tide of God's judgment against Judah.

Predictably, Jeremiah encountered resistance throughout his life. (It seems, though, that he was never opposed by Josiah.) People don't like to hear negativity; they detest those who pronounce judgment. But Jeremiah remained faithful to his ministry of subversion and his message of judgment, and God carried out every word that he spoke through Jeremiah.

Near the end of his life, on the other side of God's judgment (executed through the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon), Jeremiah was finally able to offer a message of hope. We find these words in chapter 31:

"The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. ...I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ...For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

There is hope on the other side of judgment for Judah and Israel. But the exile to Babylon was not the full extent of God's judgment. When the people returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple, it became clear that, though they had returned to the Promised Land, God had not returned to them. They were still in a spiritual state of exile. This is because the judgment of God had not been fully executed.

That's where Jesus comes in. Jesus suffered the full judgment of God for the sins of Israel, Judah, and the whole world when he died on that Roman cross. We live on the other side of God's judgment. It has already been executed, and his own son took the full penalty of it because God loves us beyond measure. And then God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead. He declared Jesus guilty of our sin. Jesus endured the sentence of our sin by dying. Then God declared him innocent by raising him from the dead.

And so we have hope--a real, living hope--because we have a real, living Savior. And we enter into this hope not through some rigorous moral exam, but through simple, childlike faith that Jesus is who he said he is and did what he set out to do. And we demonstrate this faith by repenting of our sin, receiving full pardon, and living under the authority of Jesus, who now reigns over all creation as the Resurrected King.

Faith

2011-08-04T20:59:00.000-04:00

I don't know where you're at today. I don't know what setbacks you've encountered recently. I don't know what you're going through right now. Maybe you're having a crisis of faith--in God, in people, in yourself. Maybe what was once so certain has become hazy, gone out of focus like a bad photograph.

I've had a lot of fun planting Ember Church, but I'd be lying to you if I told you that it was easy. Church planting is hard work, if for no other reason than that the devil is opposed to it. We've experienced setbacks. We've gone through trials. We were cruising along the highway going 65 when all of a sudden someone put a speedbump on the interstate. Every church planting team goes through this. Every established church goes through this. Heck, every family, every corporation, every school goes through this. It's a part of life.

What makes it especially difficult for a church planting team, though, is that you begin to ask questions like, "Is God still with us? Does he want us to quit? Are we doing the right thing here?" What was once so certain becomes hazy when we get hit by the trials of life. It happens. Trials happen. It doesn't mean that God has abandoned us. Quite the opposite, actually. Any team that's doing God's work and fulfilling his purposes for their community will experience resistance from Satan.

The enemy has come to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to steal your joy. He wants to kill your spirit. He wants to destroy the work of God in your life. That is always his aim. He wants you to doubt God's call on your life. He wants you to doubt God's presence with you. Don't. Faith is trusting in God despite the mounting evidence. Faith sees with eyes that look through circumstances and see the living God, standing in the midst of it all, inviting you to his side. Faith sees the true, deeper reality, that God is--that he simply and fully is--and in that finds overwhelming joy.

In one of the most incredible passages in the whole Bible, Peter puts it like this:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,

who through faith are shielded by God’s power

until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In all this you greatly rejoice,

though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith

—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—

may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Though you have not seen him,

you love him;

and even though you do not see him now,

you believe in him

and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

for you are receiving the end result of your faith,

the salvation of your souls.

That's 1 Peter 1:3-9. You should probably read it again.

You have been given an entirely new life, a life that is rooted in a hope that lives because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. You have been given an inheritance that can never wear out or be destroyed--an inheritance that Jesus is keeping for you in heaven.

God's power shields you from the wiles and lies of Satan through your faith in Jesus Christ. This protection lasts for more than a moment--it lasts from this moment until the day Jesus returns in power and glory to judge and reign on the earth.

Because of this...rejoice! Greatly rejoice! Even though you're going through crap right now, that crap has come so that you have the opportunity to persevere--so that you can see just how genuine your faith in Jesus is. And rejoice, because this crap too shall pass.

You haven't seen him; and yet you love him. You haven't seen him; and yet you have put your trust in him--the resurrected King of the cosmos. And when you press into that reality, into what is really real and truly true, then you will be filled with an inexpressible joy because, in that, you are receiving what your faith has promised, the salvation of your soul in the here and now.

Inerrant or Infallible

2011-08-03T11:26:00.000-04:00

There has been some recent discussion over a small part of Ember Church's statement of faith. When declaring our beliefs about Scripture, we state this:

We believe that God sovereignly provided human beings with the sixty-six books of the Protestant Canon as his written revelation, and that these books are authoritative for all Christians, infallible in all matters of faith and practice.

The part I've put in bold is the statement in question. Within some evangelical circles, saying that the Bible is infallible in all matters of faith and practice is code for theological liberalism. Let me say, definitively, that neither I nor Ember Church are "theologically liberal". Neither are we "fundamentalist". Instead, we consider ourselves historically orthodox in the Protestant, evangelical tradition.

Why, then, does our Statement of Faith not declare the Scriptures to be "inerrant in the original manuscripts"? For many evangelicals, the inerrancy of the Bible is a "watershed issue", meaning that it is fundamentally definitive of evangelicalism, and a hill on which one should die. Inerrancy is not a position that should be compromised, and anyone who does is slipping toward theological liberalism.

I think this is untrue. In fact, I understand infallibility to be a much stronger position on the Bible than inerrancy. Let me explain why.

The Questions of the Enlightenment

Inerrancy is an apologetic doctrine. That is to say, it is a belief formulated in defense of Scripture. Inerrancy is not so much motivated by the desire to explain Scripture, but rather to defend its authority and accuracy as God's revealed word. Inerrancy is evangelicalism's attempt to answer the skeptical questions of modernism and the Enlightenment. "The Bible is so full of contradictions and errors," cry the skeptics! "No it's not," retort the believers, "it is without error in the original manuscripts."

But I believe that the questions of the Enlightenment are designed to trap believers. When the skeptics tried to trap Jesus with trick questions, he skillfully evaded them and turned the tables on the doubters. Inerrancy, however, tries to answer the trick questions of the Enlightenment, whereas infallibility says to the Enlightenment, "You're asking the wrong questions." The precision of details and the length of days have absolutely no bearing on what God is trying to communicate in his word.

It's as though the Enlightenment has come along and said, "If football is the perfect game, then why can't you hit a home run in it?" And we've gone ahead and tried to explain just how one might hit a home run in football. Their questions are nonsense, and we need not spend time addressing them. When the doubters questioned Jesus about paying taxes, he turned the tables on them and said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." I believe the doctrine of infallibility, properly understood, does likewise.

The Standard of Error

Who decides what is error and isn't? Should an ancient document be judged by modern standards? Who gets to set the standard of errancy?

God sovereignly ordained the Scriptures to be written in premodern times, long before the advent of modernism, the Enlightenment, and the supremacy of science. Paul, Isaiah, and Moses had different standards of error and definitions of precision than the team of scientists that flies people to the moon. This seems so obvious as to go without saying, and yet I see that people on both sides of the aisle--both skeptics and believers--are demanding that Scripture conform to the precision of modernity. Isn't it more remarkable that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 years by dozens of different people in wildly divergent cultures and environments, all forming one cohesive story which explains life and all of history from beginning to end? Isn't that so unfathomably amazing that whatever tiny errors of precision (according to the standard of modern science) are absolutely inconsequential?

Just as it is nonsense to apply the standards of baseball to the game of football, so it is nonsense to apply the standards of modern science to the content of Scripture. The Bible wasn't written last year. It was written on scrolls and parchments by shepherds and itinerant preachers long before printing presses, copy machines, and ctrl+c ctrl+v were invented. You don't have to defend the Bible. Anyone who knows anything about ancient manuscripts and literature knows that the Bible is the gold standard.

And that's one of the main problems I have with inerrancy--it looks to a standard outside of Scripture. It says, "there is no error." But as John Frame says, infallibility declares of Scripture, "there can be no error." In other words, the Bible, not the Enlightenment, sets the standard of error. The Bible is its own standard.

Original Manuscripts

As an apologetic doctrine, inerrancy is intellectually weak in that it points to "the original manuscripts" as being without error, but we no longer have any original manuscripts. They no longer exist. In my opinion, then, inerrancy is an incredibly weak position apologetically, because we can't produce the evidence to substantiate our claim. We are, in effect, putting our faith in some documents that no longer exist.

Moreover, we are also unintentionally undermining the very good science by which we reconstruct the Scriptures through the manuscripts we do have--and we have a lot! The New Testament, in particular, is, by far, the most well-attested ancient document in the world. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to early and reliable manuscripts. For a rundown on how the science works, check out this post. This is a strength of Scripture to be embraced, not a weakness to be ignored.

The Historicity of Christianity

One critique of what we have in our Statement of Faith is that it doesn't account for history. But our faith is fundamentally historical. The Gospel is the account of the historical crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Christian faith is rooted in Jewish history. Because infallibility allows the Bible to set the standard of error, we believe that everything the Bible says happened, happened.

In conclusion, infallibility is a richer, more robust understanding of Scripture than inerrancy. In fact, infallibility includes inerrancy, but only according to the standards that Scripture itself ordains, and not according to the standards of skeptical modernity. The way that I understand infallibility is that, rather than being code for theological liberalism, it is actually more theologically conservative than inerrancy because it allows the Bible to speak for itself, on its own terms; it honors God's sovereignty in his decision on the where and when and how and by whom of biblical authorship; and it honors God's power in preserving, for the church, a superabundance of ancient manuscripts from which we can get a solid understanding of what was written in those elusive original manuscripts.

If you've managed to make it through this ridiculously long post, I'd love to hear your feedback. You can either leave a comment or send me an email.

Sermon Prep

2011-08-02T14:49:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I learned in seminary is that every preacher's sermon preparation process is different. Mark Driscoll recently shared that he spends about an hour of prep, and then preaches for an hour as he externally processes the text. That's great for Mark, who has a photographic memory, but it sure ain't gonna work for me. I don't have a photographic memory and I'm not an external processor, so my sermon preparation takes a lot longer than one hour.

The first thing that I do is prayerfully choose a text. Because Ember is going through books of the Bible, I'll generally read the whole book through at least once. (I read Jeremiah once the whole way through, but for a book like Titus, which is going to be our second series, I'll read it through several times.) Once I become familiar with the whole book, I'll break it up into sections. I've had to be choosy with Jeremiah, so I picked those sections which I felt were, a) most preacheable, and b) presented a holistic picture of the book.

The first page of my notes on Jeremiah 1

Once I've picked a text, I print it out in a format that I can mark up and take notes on. As you can see from the pictures, I take a lot of notes. I'll write down everything I think of, from the antecedents of important pronouns to insights that I glean from the text. This is probably the most important step of the process, as I am hoping to fully immerse myself in the Scripture I'll be preaching. I want to know it inside and out. I want to hear the voice of the author. I want to feel the heat of the sun under which he first penned or spoke these words. I want to feel the heart of God as he reveals his word through that author. I want to know the author's world, and the first audience's world, so that I can know how this text makes sense in my world.

The second page of my notes on Jeremiah 1

I let Fee & Stuart's core principle drive me as I study the text: The Bible cannot mean what it never meant. I want to understand how it was God's word to those original readers so that I can know how it is God's word for me and my congregation. This is the process of exegesis, which basically means that the preaching is trying to draw the original meaning out of the text, rather than to put his own meaning into the text.

After studying I go through what I call The 7 Good Questions, which, apparently, I've never posted here at the blog. This is a fuller process of exegesis of which the above is the answer to just one of the seven good questions. The seven questions are:

What am I reading?
What do I see?
What is the literary context?
What is the historical context?
What is the biblical context?
What is the principle?
How do I apply this?

After answering those questions, I move on to what I call Sermon Notes, where I put together a structure and flow, come up with a title and a big idea, pull out the key verses, and write a brief synopsis. Then! Finally! I begin writing the sermon after, once again, inviting the Holy Spirit to fill me, to speak to me, and to speak through me. I'll generally go through two or three revisions of the sermon before I feel good about it. The last step is to preach it, either to my wife or to a wall, and then make any final changes. It's a long process, but it's a lot of fun for me, and well worth the time.

First Sermon Series

2011-08-01T11:46:00.001-04:00

One of the things that I hope will become distinctive about Ember is our preaching style and philosophy. I think it's important for us to preach biblically and exegetically, which means that we'll spend a lot of time working our way through whole books, or major sections, of Scripture. We won't be doing a lot of topical preaching, though that may be necessary occasionally.

Our first sermon series is going to be a 12 week journey through the book of Jeremiah. The series is called Run With Horses, which is the name of an excellent book by Eugene Peterson, as well as a powerful metaphor taken from Jeremiah 12:5. It was that verse and that concept that set me on the course of planting this church almost a year ago.

I've finished the first three sermons and am working on the fourth one today. Writing these sermons has been such a joy, even if they are all taken from texts in the second most depressing book in the Bible! I believe that God has drawn me to Jeremiah because he wants to wage war against the idols of our hearts, and idolatry is the primary concern of Jeremiah the prophet. The insights that I've gleaned so far have been extremely challenging, and I can't wait to preach them to you.

God wants to wage war against the idols of your heart. Come join us for our Jeremiah series, and get on the winning side of that war. The first service is August 14 @ 5pm, 401 E. Schrock Rd.

Two Weeks Away

2011-07-31T10:45:00.001-04:00

We are just two weeks away from the first Ember service! I can't even begin to describe how excited I am for this church to launch. I came into my office this morning and found our 8' sign rolled up on my chair, and underneath it were our two overflow parking signs...because we're hoping to fill up the parking lot, and then some, on August 14!

If you're planning on coming to worship with us that first weekend, we've got a special gift for you. No, it's not a pen. Or a coffee mug. It's dinner! After the service we're going to hang out and celebrate what Jesus has done and what we hope he will do in and through our community. I don't know what's on the menu, but I do know it's free! So come out and nourish your soul and your belly with us. (These are the sort of things I have to say now that I'm pastoring a church. It's in the handbook.)

August 14 | 5pm

401 E. Schrock Rd., Westerville

You can always check out our website or browse through the various Ember posts on this blog for more information on the church. (Some of those Ember posts are from a previous church plant that is not directly related to this one.) Or you can send me an email. I'd love to talk with you about the church.

That Which Defiles

2011-07-27T14:13:00.000-04:00

This morning I read Mark 7 as part of my devotional reading. (I do the M'Cheyne reading program on youversion, and yes, I'm a couple days behind.) The first half of the chapter is a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees about ceremonial cleanliness.

Apparently, Jesus' disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate, which broke the tradition of the Jewish elders. (The washing of hands had more to do with ceremonial or ritualistic cleanliness than personal hygiene.) When the Pharisees called Jesus out on this, he laid into them pretty good, calling them "hypocrites" and dropping some Scripture on them. (We would call this a Jesus Juke today, but what did Jesus call it? A "me juke"? "Typical conversation"?) Then he called out the Pharisees for having traditions that contradict the commands of Scripture. There's a golden preaching moment here about our own traditions and beliefs that we value so highly but which, ultimately, contradict Scripture. But I'll let that one pass...

As if that wasn't enough, Jesus goes on to essentially rewrite all of the Old Testament food laws! Speaking about food, he says, "Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them." This is a bold statement in that culture, and it certainly wasn't lost on Mark, who commented on it, "In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean." This is such a loaded statement that I don't even know where to begin, so I'll just have to let that one pass, too...

But Jesus isn't done yet! He calls the Pharisees (and the rest of humanity, for that matter) on the carpet for the sin that resides in their hearts. That, he says, is what really defiles someone.

What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, our of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come--sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.

The Pharisees made sure to obey all the food laws because they thought that, by obeying Torah and Tradition, they would be clean, undefiled. But Jesus told them they were already defiled because of the sin that lives in their hearts. Our fundamental problem is not that we become defiled by the things we do, but that we are already defiled by the sinful desires that reside in our hearts, and those sinful desires inevitably lead to sinful actions.

The Pharisees' attempts at ritualistic cleanliness were futile. In the same way, your attempts to be good enough for God are pointless. Because of indwelling sin, you simply cannot be good enough for God. None of us can. Our only hope is if someone who does not have sin can provide a way for us to identify with himself so that, when we stand before God at the final judgment, he will vouch for us.

Wouldn't you know it? This is exactly what Jesus has done for us, and the way he has provided for us to identify with himself is through faith. No cleanliness commands. No tradition of the elders. No impossible moral code. Simply faith. How beautiful is that?

First Worship Music Team Practice

2011-07-24T22:01:00.000-04:00

Tonight I had the pleasure of sitting in on the first rehearsal of Ember's music team. (I have bloodsworn to Garth Heasley that I will never call them the "worship team"; always the "music team".) We have so many talented musicians and singers on our team it's ridiculous, and the best part of all is that they truly want to worship Jesus with their gifts and talents. No egos. No divas. Just talented and humble worshippers. I am honored to be serving Jesus with these people.

It was fun for me to sit in on the rehearsal. Although not everyone who will be on the team was there tonight--this was just a practice for the first service--it was cool to get a sense of how Garth and his wife Kelly will lead this ministry. They're really approaching it as servant leaders, and it's clear that their primary aim is to draw the congregation into worship. Everything else, from sound quality to musical style to personal involvement, serves that end. That's the way it should be!

Despite the fact that this was the first time these great folks had ever played together, there were moments of genuine worship. The first song they practiced, Jesus Is the Lord, gave me a strong sense that this team has got it. It wasn't practice; it was worship. And that sense was confirmed for me again and again. I have to say, I'm neither a musician nor a singer, but I want to go to all their meetings!

Our first worship service is three weeks from today. My hope is that you'll be able to join us and, even more so, that you'll encounter our risen Savior in a powerful way.

Ember Church: Statement of Faith

2011-07-22T13:11:00.000-04:00

What is right belief? Some say it is subjective, entirely up to the conscience and experience of the individual. Others say it is revealed by God in Scripture. Still others say there is no way to know for certain.

This is not our official logo, but uses the elements of it.
Maybe someday we'll put this on a t-shirt. Or maybe not.

Right beliefs have taken a front seat in Evangelical circles this year. Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, lit a firestorm in the neoReformed community for it's questions about universalism. More recently, Campus Crusade for Christ has come under fire for changing it's name to Cru, an unofficial title that has been used on campuses for years but that, as many are pointing out, no longer contains the world "Christ". (For the record, I didn't love Love Wins and I think Cru's name change is appropriate.)

As we sat down to formulate a statement of faith for Ember Church, we had to sort through what was essential belief, what was nonessential, and what was inconsequential. This is not an easy discussion, as many people hold certain beliefs as essential that others deem inconsequential. We surveyed the statements of faith from many churches so that we could see what others have deemed essential. In the end, we settled on a statement of faith that, in our estimation, accurately reflected historic, orthodox, Protestant, evangelical doctrine.

Statement of Faith

We believe in one holy and humble Creator God who eternally exists in three fully divine and good persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We believe God created human beings, both male and female, in his image, and therefore every human being has infinite intrinsic value.

We believe that humans rebelled against God in a vain and arrogant attempt to supplant him. This rebellion brought sin, evil and death into what had been a perfect world; all human beings are now born into sin, separated from God, with no hope of atoning for their sin or healing their broken relationship with God on their own.

We believe that, in order to once and for all deal with sin, evil and death, God sent his son Jesus Christ to us. He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, performed many signs and miracles, suffered death on a Roman cross, and rose again from the dead three days later. Jesus’ death made atonement for the sins of all humanity, and in his resurrection he defeated death and the powers of evil. He has ascended to the right hand of God the Father.

We believe that all who put their faith in Jesus Christ, humbling themselves in repentance of sin and forsaking all other means of salvation, will be saved.

We believe that God sovereignly provided human beings with the sixty-six books of the Protestant Canon as his written revelation, and that these books are authoritative for all Christians, infallible in all matters of faith and practice.

We believe that the Church is comprised of all who put their faith in Jesus Christ, and that God is active in the world through the Church, empowering individual believers and local communities of believers to fulfill his mission of making disciples through the transformative presence of the Holy Spirit.

We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again as King and Judge; all who cry out to him by faith will live with him forever, and all who reject him will experience eternal separation from God.

Ember Church Core Values: The Rest

2011-07-21T10:04:00.000-04:00

Ember Church has seven core values: Gospel, Humility, Authenticity, Creativity, Community, Agape, and Truth. I've already blogged about Gospel and Humility. Rather than give each core value a separate entry, I thought I would just post the rest here with the comments that we had written up about them. Our first service is August 14 @ 5pm, and we meet at 401 E. Schrock Road in Westerville. We'd love to have you come worship with us!

Authenticity

There is a tremendous temptation for people, especially Christians, to maintain a façade of self-sufficiency—to put forth the appearance that everything is fine and that we’ve got it all together. This is deception, and is incongruent with the way of Jesus. We strive to be authentic people, developing open, honest, and intimate relationships with God and others.

Creativity

God created a world of exhilarating beauty and awe-inspiring magnificence, and then he created human beings in his image. We are designed to be creative beings, and our creativity is meant to be used in acts of worship. We strive to be a community that fosters our various creative gifts for the purpose of worshipping God.

Community

The way of Jesus is not something that can be walked alone. It is God’s intention that we live out our faith in local communities of fellow believers; we need each other in order to follow Jesus well. We strive to be a gospel community, committed to reconciling broken relationships, living as new creations in the resurrection of Jesus, and pursuing healing and wholeness through the forgiveness offered at the cross.

Agape

Agape is a Greek word used throughout the New Testament that we translate ‘love’. This is the love that we see on display at the cross of Christ; it is a love that lays down its life. Jesus said that agape love would be the defining characteristic of his disciples, and so we strive to be people who are defined by agape love—people who set aside their rights, who lay down their lives, and who forgive offenses, even at great cost to themselves.

Truth

Of all the statements of Jesus, his claim to be “the truth” is perhaps the boldest. Because we believe Jesus when he makes this claim, we are confident that a relentless pursuit of the truth will bring us back to Christ. We strive to know and understand the deep truths of God and the Scriptures, and we will not allow fear to stand in our way of knowing God deeply.

And here are the first two, just so that we can have all of them in the same place.

Gospel

The Gospel is the definitive message of Christian faith. We define it according to 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” The Gospel is the story of what God has done in history to redeem humans from their sin; it is a world re-creating event that continues to live on in the community of Jesus' friends. We strive to center ourselves around the Gospel, letting it define and drive all that we do as a church.

Humility

At the root of everything God is and does, and all that he calls us to do and be, is humility. Pride is the fundamental betrayal of the way of life Jesus gave us. We strive to maintain an attitude of humility toward God, one another, other churches, and the unbelieving world.

Ember Church Core Values: Humility

2011-07-19T09:49:00.000-04:00

The second of our seven core values is humility. In the early stages of our launch meetings, I wrote up a document called Foundational Theology: The Humility of God. You can view this document here. Basically, I tried to assert that all of God's attributes--everything he is and all that he does--flows out of his humility; beneath all else, God is humble.

Humility

At the root of everything God is and does, and all that he calls us to do and be, is humility. Pride is the fundamental betrayal of the way of life Jesus gave us. We strive to maintain an attitude of humility toward God, one another, other churches, and the unbelieving world.

You cannot maintain an arrogant attitude toward God and expect him to a) bless you, or b) put up with it. The Scriptures say, again and again, that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Proud and arrogant people simply do not receive the grace of God, not so much because God withholds it from them, but because they refuse to accept it.

The new way of being human into which God has called us through faith in Jesus demands that we have humble hearts toward one another. Pride is the disease that kills the body of Christ on earth. Pride makes the bride of Christ ugly and unpresentable. Humility, however, is like medicine, instantly attacking the disease of pride and destroying it. Humility is essential if the church is to work the way God has designed it to work.

Ember is just one of many churches in our area, and we want to work with the churches around us to advance the rule and reign of Jesus the King. That means that we will honor what God has done and is doing elsewhere. We aren't the best church around. We haven't got it all figured out. We've written about this in our Philosophy of Ministry:

We are not the only people doing this. God is working through many local churches in our community to spread the gospel and advance his kingdom. Many of these churches do everything we do and more, and they do it much better than we can. We will work to partner with these other churches with the sense that we all make up a singular, universal body of Christ on earth.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, we want to have humble hearts and attitudes toward those that do not believe in Jesus. In a world overflowing with blustering arrogance blowing from every corner--religious, secular, political, entertainment--maybe humility will be the most convincing apologetic that Jesus the King really did lay down his life on the cross for the sins of us all.

Humility is hard. Pride comes naturally to just about everyone of us. But by the grace of God, we will fight off the creeping pride of our hearts and look to model the deep humility we find in the heart of God.

Ember Church Core Values: Gospel

2011-07-17T19:21:00.001-04:00

One of the things we did, as a launch team, was sit down and discuss what we value as a community. We came up with a list of seven, and at the very top of the list we wrote "Gospel". The Gospel of Jesus Christ is our definitive core value. This is what we wrote:

Gospel

The Gospel is the definitive message of Christian faith. We define it according to 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” The Gospel is the story of what God has done in history to redeem humans from their sin; it is a world re-creating event that continues to live on in the community of Jesus' friends. We strive to center ourselves around the Gospel, letting it define and drive all that we do as a church.

We are Gospel-people, and we are driven to see the Gospel happen in our church. This is a great idea, but really hard to do in practice. The evil, unredeemed desires of our hearts so often compel us to choose selfishness over self-giving love, self-worship over the worship of Christ, and self-exaltation over the divine humility and power so clearly on display in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. But the Gospel teaches us to set aside our own self-interest, as Jesus did when he became one of us, and then died for all of us.

The Gospel is the force by which God's kingdom is breaking into this world, and it happens internally, interpersonally, and communally. The Gospel happens in our hearts when our wicked and selfish desires are transformed and we begin to truly, deeply want the same things God wants. The Gospel happens interpersonally when we choose, often against our natural wills, to show grace to one another. The Gospel happens communally when a church determines that it will, as one person, walk in the light of a love that lays down its life and, through that, spreads the rule and reign of Jesus the King to hearts and homes where it has not been before.

We believe that the Gospel is the most powerful message of hope in the world. There is nothing quite like it:

that the Son of God became a man,
that he died for the sins of every person on earth,
that he rose again from the dead,
that he is currently putting all of his enemies under his feet,
and that he is coming back one day to judge the world and reign forever.

Christians are, by definition, crucifixion-and-resurrection people. We are gathered together, from all nations and tribes, by the crucified Christ who is the risen Lord. We eagerly await his triumphant return. And we live, today, in the strength of the only force on earth that has the power to turn our evil hearts good, to make our broken relationships whole, and to change our dark world into light.

Ember Church: The Mission

2011-07-06T13:29:00.000-04:00

Ember Church exists to see the gospel happen in our hearts, in our relationships, and in our community. That's our mission statement, our focus. It's our way of framing the overarching mission of the Church: To make disciples. Let me write it really big, in case you're just glancing at this page without really reading it.

Ember Church exists to see the gospel happen in our hearts, in our relationships, and in our community.

There, that's better. Now let me dissect the statement a little bit.

Ember Church exists to see...

It's not our task to make the gospel happen. That's what God does through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit as he works out the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the world. Our job, rather, is to see that it happens--to create environments where the gospel is possible.

...the gospel happen...

This is an odd way of framing it, but I don't think of the gospel as a passive object so much as an active agent. As I've said elsewhere, the gospel is a world re-creating event that lives on in the community of Jesus's friends. It's more than a message. It's the force by which God's kingdom is breaking into our world, and it happens when we preach faithfully, when we worship passionately, and when we love selflessly.

...in our hearts...

The gospel begins its work in our hearts by faith in Jesus Christ through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit residing within us. The grace of God, which we know only through the gospel, transforms us at the deepest level of our hearts--the level of desire. This is a long, slow, often painful process, but the end result is that we are transformed into the image of Jesus. The gospel must happen here before it can happen anywhere else.

...in our relationships...

This is really where the rubber meets the road. Can we work out our differences and learn to lay down our lives for one another, even when we don't like each other? Can we confront people who have offended or hurt us with open hearts and minds? Can we think the best of one another, even though we give each other every reason not to? Can we worship Jesus together, even though we disagree on just about everything? In an individualistic society that tends to bail on relationships when they get difficult, this is where the gospel will make a difference so big that the world will have to stand up and take notice.

...and in our community.

A huge part of our task is to see those who are far from God brought close to him through faith in Jesus Christ. We are going to engage our community with the good news that Jesus Christ has died for the sins of humanity, risen from the dead, and that he is now the rightful King over all creation. And, most of all, Jesus loves each of us with the sort of love defined by the cross: He laid down his divine life and suffered human death in order to pay the penalty for the sins of all humanity.

This is the mission of Ember Church. If something I've written here has resonated with you, or you'd like to know more about Ember, please feel free to send me an email. I'd love to hear from you!

Ember Church: The Vision

2011-07-05T14:32:00.001-04:00

One of the first things that church planters get asked is, "What is your vision for this church? What is your vision for the future?" This is a tough one for me, because sometimes the only vision I have is of eating Chipotle for dinner.

But the vision drives the church; and the vision I have in my own head is what drives me to plant this church. We actually have a vision statement (which we may or may not have stolen from Scum of the Earth Church) that we settled on recently.

We strive to be a church who:
actively pursues intimacy with God and honest relationships with others;
cultivates creativity and uses everyone’s gifts;
humbly seeks to know God, his Word, and his ways well;
recognizes our need for Jesus, our Savior ;
respectfully shares the saving love of Christ;
demonstrates God’s self-sacrificing love in our community;
worships God passionately and proclaims his Word prophetically.

This is who we want to be, but that works itself out in a thousand ways. So let me tell you about the future I see, the future that drives me to plant Ember Church.

I see a future where you're not giving into the sins that plague you now. I see a future where God has transformed you at the deepest levels of your heart. I see a future where you have been so completely changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ that you now actually desire the things of God. I see a future where your relationship with your parents (or your kids) has been restored. I see a future where you have the courage to follow God, faithfully, wherever he leads you. I see a future where the godliness of your character allows your children to grow up with an intimate knowledge and experience of the grace and love of God. I see a future where you are primarily motivated by agape love, not fear or guilt. I see a future where the image of God is restored in you by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

I see this future for you because I believe that this is what God wants for you and, therefore, it is a real possibility for you. This is not a pipe dream. This is not false hope. This is not preacher talk. This is a reality personally pursued by God with all the power of the Holy Spirit at work within you.

I'm planting Ember Church because I believe that God has more for you. Not more stuff, but more character. Not more pleasures, but more Christlikeness. Not more self-indulgence, but more discipline and self-control. God wants the rule and reign of Jesus the King to become a deeper, ever present reality within your heart and throughout your life. That's the "more" I'm thinking of.

And so when I dream about what Ember can be, I see a church where liberals and conservatives can enjoy a stimulating conversation and a delicious meal together, all in the name of Jesus. I see a church where God is worshipped with thoughtful passion. I see a church where the word of God is proclaimed prophetically and faithfully. I see a church where mistakes are acknowledged publicly and humbly. I see a church where those who are far from God are brought near to him through respectful, empathetic gospel-proclamation. I see a church full of people who know their Bibles well because they have learned to read the Scriptures with insight and clarity. I see a church that is known for walking the walk of Jesus--of laying down their lives for each other and for the world. I see a church full of people who know that the only difference between themselves and those without Christ is Christ. I see a church where surrender to Jesus is normal. I see a church where Jesus rules and reigns, and from which his rule and reign is extended to hearts and homes all across central Ohio. I see a church that walks in the light of a love that lays down its life; that loves and is not afraid.

This is the vision. If this strikes a chord with you, or if this is what you want to see the church be, too, please feel free to send me an email. I'd love to talk with you.

Ember Church

2011-07-01T13:17:00.000-04:00

I've had this dream for more than eight years now. There were times I thought God had taken it completely off the table; that it would never happen. But, today, I'm very excited to announce that Ember Church will be holding its first service on August 14!

We've been in the planning stages for about 8 months, and it's been killing me not to talk about it on my blog. So much has happened in that time, and we've already seen God's faithfulness and favor. I'll be posting some of those stories here in the coming weeks. We'll be meeting at the American Baptist Church in Westerville on Sunday nights, with services starting at 5pm.

August 14 | 5pm

401 E. Schrock Rd., Westerville, OH

People have asked me, "Why does Westerville need another church?" This is my answer: Because the rule and reign of Jesus the King has not yet been extended to every heart and home in central Ohio. We want to partner with other churches in our area to see the gospel happen in our community. We want to see the reign of Jesus become a new reality and a deeper reality to people all over Columbus.

Ember is not the last church that Westerville (and Columbus) will ever need. We're not here to set the world on fire. We're not here to save Christianity in central Ohio. We're not here to do something nobody else is doing; we're here to continue the work that God has been up to in this community for decades. Maybe, in our church, it will take new shapes and find new expressions, but it will be the same Jesus. We are here to point to Jesus, because only he can save you, only he can transform your heart, and only he can be your true King.

I'll be posting a lot more information about Ember Church here at the blog over the next few weeks. I've got 8 months of silence to make up for! If you want to know more about the church, or think that God might be leading you to get involved, please send me an email. I'd love to talk with you. Please also feel free to pray for us. Regularly. And then come join us for worship on August 14 at 5pm, 401 E. Schrock Road. (Did I get that in there enough?)

Book Review: The Prodigal God

2011-06-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

With the possible exception of the story of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son is probably the most famous of Jesus's parables. You've heard it before. No doubt you've read it. You've even heard it preached on at church. If there's anything in the New Testament that you've got down by now, it's the story of the Prodigal Son. It is absolutely certain that what Jesus means by that parable is that no matter what we do, no matter how far we run, we can always come back to God.

While that's true, that's not all that the parable is about. It goes, in fact, much, much deeper. To discover that meaning, may I recommend to you Tim Keller's excellent book, The Prodigal God. You will never read the parable the same way again.

The key, Keller argues, is to recognize that there are two sons in the story, and both are lost. In fact, the younger brother may have captured the attention of the evangelical mind, but the story is really about the elder brother. It was originally told, after all, to a group of elder brothers called the Pharisees. The younger brother is lost because of his sin, but the elder brother is lost because of his righteousness.

Huh? How can that be? It is because the elder brother tried to manipulate and control his father by obeying all of the rules. "It is not his sins that create the barrier between [the elder brother] and his father, it's the pride he has in his moral record; it's not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that keeps him from sharing in the feast of his father." Like the younger brother, the elder brother never truly cared about his father; he only cared about the estate. While the younger brother was audacious enough to demand it, the elder brother quietly resented his father's presence whilst working slavishly to keep him happy. For elder brothers, "the good life is lived not for delight in good deeds themselves, but as calculated ways to control their environment."

Where Keller goes from here will absolutely astound you, and no doubt leave that impression on your spirit that, at last, this parable makes complete sense! This book will be a valuable resource not only for understanding the parable of the Prodigal Son, but also of discovering how to rightly relate to God.

Book Review: The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting

2011-06-27T15:18:00.000-04:00

When I decided to go ahead with planting Ember Church in the fall of 2010, I was overwhelmed by the process. I knew there was a lot of work to be done, but I didn't know where to start. I found a lot of books on church planting, but couldn't tell which ones were good and which ones weren't. I tried judging those books by their covers, but this turned out to be a bad idea. The old saying is true after all, I suppose.

It wasn't until several months into the process that I finally picked up The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting by Aubrey Malphurs, and I immediately wished I had read this book sooner. This book is exactly what it says it is: the nuts and bolts of a project that can often seem overwhelmingly complex and about as solid as water. Malphurs helps the reader get his hands on and head around the process of church planting.

The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting demystifies the church planting process and gives new church planters (like myself) a plan and some solid direction for accomplishing their end of this task. He simplifies the ministry of the new church down to the overall mission of the Church, which is to make disciples. Keeping this mission in the front of your mind, regardless of how you frame it for your church, will keep you on track as you trudge through the difficult phase of church planning and planting.

As somebody who is doing this right now, I can't think of a better book to give to church planters than Aubrey Malphurs' The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting. It's simple, practical, readable, and comes with an abundance of support material (16 appendices!) to help guide you through this difficult process. If you're thinking about planting a church, read this book first. If you're on a church plant team, get it for your pastor! The more time you spend with this book, the more time you will save and the more frustration you will avoid in the church planting process.

Book Review: The Enemy Within

2011-06-27T13:35:00.001-04:00

I've been told that John Owen, the Puritan pastor, is one of the most insightful Christian authors to have put pen to paper. Unfortunately, he is also one of the most difficult to understand. Reading his books is like running through mud. Here is a single sentence which appears in Owen's book, The Mortification of Sin:

I hope I may own in sincerity, that my heart's desire unto God, and the chief design of my life in the station wherein the good providence of God hath placed me, are that mortification and universal holiness may be promoted in my own and in the hearts and ways of others, to the glory of God; that so the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things: for the compassing of which end, if this little discourse...may in any thing be useful to the least of the saints, it will be looked on as a return of the weak prayers wherewith it is attended by its unworthy author.

Thank God Kris Lundgaard has taken Owen's thoughts and distilled them into an eminently readable book, The Enemy Within. The book deals with the question: "If God has redeemed me from sin, and given me his Holy Spirit to sanctify me and give me strength against sin, why do I go on sinning?" This is a crucial question, one that plagues every serious Christian at some point in their lives.

The reason we continue to sin, says Lundgaard via Owen, is because our flesh--our sinful nature--continues to live in us (Romans 7). He writes in chapter 4,

The flesh is more than God's enemy: it is the enmity, the hostility, the pure hatred [of God] itself.
The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. (Romans 8:7, NKJV)
Two enemies, no matter how deep the river of their bitterness runs, can make peace--but only if the hostility between them is destroyed. It is impossible to make peace with hostility itself.

The solution is, as John Owen wrote, is the mortification of sin. Our flesh, the sinful nature, must die. The sin inside each one of us will never accept a cease-fire peace treaty with God because sin is not the enemy, it is the hostility. In order for the believer to be free from the power of sin, it must die.

The good news is that our sinful natures were crucified with Christ.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:6-7)

The crucifixion of our sinful natures is what God is working out, what he is actualizing in our lives through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The mortification of sin in us is the process of sanctification. The sinful nature dies every day, and every day the image of Christ lives more and more in and through us. Through this process, we, who were once enemies of God, become his friends as the hostility between us (our sinful natures) is destroyed.

I've not read John Owen, and probably never will. But Kris Lundgaard seems to have done an excellent job writing a book that distills Owen's meticulous thoughts on sin and sanctification into a readable form.

Black Genocide

2011-06-22T11:38:00.001-04:00

On the recommendation of a friend, I watched a documentary called Maafa 21 the other day. Before I say anything about it, you should check out the trailer below.

The film runs about two and a half hours, but it's well worth your time. What you'll learn is that Planned Parenthood, the primary abortion provider in America, was born out of the Eugenics movement in the early 20th century. Eugenics is the science of improving the genetic composition of the human race. The Nazis pursued the science of Eugenics in their obsession with creating the master race, and we are all familiar with the horrifying results for 6 million Jews in their concentration camps.

What you may not know is that the Nazi Eugenics movement was aided by American Eugenicists who were closely associated with Margaret Sanger, the founder of the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood. In America, the Eugenics movement directly targeted African-Americans, with claims that the black race was inherently inferior to the white race. The Eugenicists taught that the growth and propagation of the black race should be controlled by the government for the betterment of the human race.

Various attempts were made to control the growth of the black race, all of them failing. The final solution, so to speak, was the legalization of abortion in 1973. Before that time, most abortions were performed on white women. Since then, as you'll see in the film, black women have become nearly 5 times more likely than white women to have an abortion.

I live in Columbus, OH, where there are 4 metro area Planned Parenthood locations. All four locations are within a five mile radius of downtown Columbus, where the black population is much higher than in other parts of the city. There is no Planned Parenthood in Westerville (87% white), Worthington (91% white), New Albany (86% white), or Dublin (79% white but less than 2% black). Compare those numbers to Columbus proper (where 3 of the 4 centers exist) which has a 28% black population, and Whitehall (which has the fourth center) with a 29% black population.

It's no wonder that abortion is being called black genocide. It's becoming clear to me that abortion is not simply about women and their reproductive rights; it's about the extermination of the black race. The history of Planned Parenthood is every bit as racist as the KKK. Abortion providers are targeting poor, black women and their unborn children. They may see what they do as a service to the community, but the reality is that they are ending lives in the womb, and those lives are disproportionately black.

Abortion is the most horrendous evil that has ever been unleashed upon mankind. Not only is it the greatest injustice on the face of the earth, but in this country it is specifically targeted at African-Americans.

I believe that, one day, we will win the war on abortion. This cannot go on forever. Perhaps a key step toward that victory is uncovering the racist roots of legalized abortion and the racial targeting by abortion providers. God help us.

How We Live the Gospel: Part 2

2011-06-17T07:51:00.011-04:00

Yesterday I wrote about the first two of five gospel perspectives that enable us to truly live out the gospel: The Extent and Gravity of Our Sin and The Centrality of the Heart. This is all part of a larger discussion about gospel substitutes and the true gospel, inspired by Lane & Tripp's book How People Change. (For crying out loud, if you read my blog and you still haven't ordered this book yet...I don't even know. You need to read it!) Without further ado, here are the final three gospel perspectives.

3. The Present Benefits of Christ

The Christian hope is more than a redemptive system with practical principles that can change your life. The hope of every Christian is a person, the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. He is the wisdom behind every biblical principle and the power we need to live them out. Because Christ lives inside us today, because he rules all things for our sakes (see Eph. 2:22-23), and because he is presently putting all his enemies under his feet (see 1 Cor. 15:25-28), we can live with courage and hope.

Our hope is not in our theological knowledge or our experience within the body of Christ. We are thankful for these things, yet we hold on to one hope: Christ. In him we find everything we need to live a godly life in the here and now. Paul captures it so well: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

You have Jesus. He is with you through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Everything you need to live the gospel truly and fully--to live the life God has designed for you to live--is available to you because you have Jesus. You lack nothing because Jesus lacks nothing. Jesus didn't just die for your sins, he rose again from the dead for your righteousness. He is alive and with you in the person of the Holy Spirit.

4. God’s Call to Growth and Change

It is so easy to coast! We have been accepted into God’s family, and someday will be with him in eternity. But what goes on in between? From the time we come to Christ until the time we go home to be with him, God calls us to change. We have been changed by his grace, are being changed by his grace, and will be changed by his grace.

What is the goal of this change? It is more than a better marriage, well-adjusted children, professional success, or freedom from a few nagging sins. God’s goal is that we would actually become like him. He doesn’t just want you to escape the fires of hell—though we praise God that through Christ you can! His goal is to free us from our slavery to sin, our bondage to self, and our functional idolatry, so that we actually take on his character!

Peter summarizes the change this way: ‘Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires’ (2 Peter 1:4).

God has an end in mind, and it is to conform you into the image of his Son. God is out to make you like Jesus. Everything he's doing in you and through you and with you has a singular purpose: Christlikeness. This demands that we never stop growing and changing, because there will always be more of us that needs to be transformed. Never stop growing.

5. A Lifestyle of Repentance and Faith

God has blessed you with his grace, gifted you with his presence, strengthened you with his power, and made you the object of his eternal love. Because we belong to him, we live for his agenda. And if change is his agenda, then repentance and faith is the lifestyle to which we have been called.

There are always new sins for the Christian to address and new enemies to defeat. The Christian life makes God’s work of change our paradigm for living, while we celebrate the grace that makes it possible. ‘For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ’ (Titus 2:11-13).

In order to participate with God in his project of the transformation of our hearts, we must be committed to live lives of humility, characterized by repentance and faith. If you think you have nothing to repent of, then you are not working with God--you're working against him.

Remember that sin is extensive and weighty; it is more than just something we do, it is who we are. But praise God, through a lifestyle of repentance and faith, the gospel says, "That is who you were. Jesus is who you are becoming."

How We Live the Gospel: Part 1

2011-06-16T11:57:00.000-04:00

I've recently been blogging about the ways in which we try and fail to live out the gospel. There are seven gospel substitutes, all focused on external behavior rather than internal transformation. They are Formalism (Volunteerism) and Legalism; Mysticism, Activism and Biblicism; Psychology-ism and Social-ism. Each of these contain elements of true Christian faith and practice, but they are poor substitutes for the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It would be silly of me to talk about how not to live the gospel without providing some perspective on how we actually do live out the gospel. Once again, I'm going to go back to Lane & Tripp's excellent book How People Change, where they offer five gospel perspectives to counter those seven gospel substitutes. To put all five in one post would be overwhelming, so I'm going to break it up a bit. I'll post the first two today and come back to the other three tomorrow.

1. The Extent and Gravity of Our Sin

The struggle to accept our exceeding sinfulness is everywhere in the church of Christ. We accept the doctrine of total depravity, but when we are approached about our own sin, we wrap our robes of self-righteousness around us and rise to our own defense.

Scripture challenges this self-righteousness with clarity and power. ‘The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time’ (Gen. 6:5), and ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’ (Rom. 3:10). The effects of sin twist every thought, motive, desire, words, and action. This disease has infected us all, and the consequences are severe.

Why is this perspective so essential? Only when you accept the bad news of the gospel does the good news make any sense. The grace, restoration, reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy, patience, power, healing, and hope of the gospel are for sinners. They are only meaningful to you if you admit that you have the disease and realize that it is terminal.

I've quoted from David Powlison before, but I'd like to do so again because this stuff is just so good.

Sin, in this popular misunderstanding, refers to matters of conscious volitional awareness of wrongdoing and the ability to do otherwise. This instinctive view of sin infects many Christians and almost all non‐Christians. It has a long legacy in the church under the label Pelagianism, one of the oldest and most instinctive heresies. The Bible’s view of sin certainly includes the high‐handed sins where evil approaches full volitional awareness. But sin also includes what we simply are, and the perverse ways we think, want, remember, and react.

Most sin is invisible to the sinner because it is simply how the sinner works, how the sinner perceives, wants and interprets things. Once we see sin for what it really is; madness and evil intentions in our hearts, absence of any fear of God, slavery to various passions (Eccl. 9:3; the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live); (Gen. 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually); (Ps. 36:1 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.); (Titus 3:3 3For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.) –then it becomes easier to see how sin is the immediate and specific problem all counseling deals with at every moment, not a general and remote problem. The core insanity of the human heart is that we violate the first great commandment. We will love anything, except God, unless our madness is checked by grace.

How quickly we forget that the only difference between people with Christ and people without Christ is Christ. Apart from Christ, there is no difference between Christians and nonChristians. This seems obvious; if only it were. All seven gospel substitutes fail to deal seriously with sin. But sin is precisely what the gospel deals with so decisively. Failing to take into account the extent and gravity of our sin is to deceive ourselves. Beginning at any other point than the depth of our sinfulness is to replace gospel Christianity with positivist humanism.

2. The Centrality of the Heart

The average Christian defines sin by talking about behavior. For example, what is the goal of most Christian parents? Is it not to get their children to do the right things? We set up all kinds of relational, motivational, and corrective structures to constrain and direct our children’s behavior. These structures are not without value, but if this is your only response to your child’s rebellion and sin, you will leave him defenseless against sin once he leaves home and the structures are no longer there.

Beneath the battle for behavior is another, more fundamental battle—the battle for the thoughts and motives of the heart. The heart is the real or essential you. All of the ways in which the Bible refers to the inner person (mind, emotions, spirit, soul, will, etc.) are summed up with this one term: heart. The heart is the steering wheel of every human being. Everything we do is shaped and controlled by what our hearts desire.

That is why the Bible is very clear that God wants our hearts. Only when God has your heart does he have you. As much as we are affected by our broken world and the sins of others against us, our greatest problem is the sin that resides in our hearts. That is why the message of the gospel is that God transforms our lives by transforming our hearts.

Lasting change always comes through the heart. This is one of Scripture’s most thoroughly developed themes, but many of us have missed its profound implications. We need a deeper understanding of Proverbs 4:23, ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.’

Your heart is not simply your emotional center, it is the core of who you are: thoughts, desires, motives, emotions, your will, etc. This is the place at which change must happen because your heart drives your behavior. Any attempt to control or change external behavior (which is what the seven gospel substitutes attempt to do) will ultimately fail because lasting behavioral change will only come through heart transformation.

Tomorrow we'll look at the final three gospel perspectives.